ZOISTIC 



MAGNETISM 



BEING THE SUBSTANCE OP TWO LECTURES, DESCRIPTIVE OF 

ORIGINAL VIEWS AND INVESTIGATIONS RESPECTING THIS 

MYSTERIOUS AGENCY ; 



DELIVERED, BY REQUEST, AT TORQUAY, ON THE 24th OF APRIL 
AND 1st OE MAY, 1849. 



BY THE 

REV. W. SCORESBY, D.D., F.R.S., 



MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE J OF THE AMERICAN 
INSTITUTE, PHILIDELPHIA, &C, &C. 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

TORQUAY : COCKREM. 

1849. 






ADVERTISEMENT. 

An Abstract of one of the Lectures herein, in 
substance, given, was originally published in the 
"Torquay Directory" of May 2nd, 1849, from 
the notes of a friend. This has been revised, 
extended and cast into the present form by the 
Author of the Investigations. In so doing he has 
not scrupled to transpose and combine passages 
which followed in a different order in the de- 
livery of the Lectures ; — the order, as originally 
set forth, being necessarily defective, because of 
an attempt, which proved unsatisfactory, to em- 
brace the whole of the subject within the con- 
tracted limits of one Lecture. 

W. S. 

Torquay, May \2th, 1849. 



4?o 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

LECTURE I. 

ORDINARY PHENOMENA DEVELOPED IN PERSONAL RESEARCHES 
IN ZOISTIC MAGNETISM, WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
THEIR ANALOGY WITH THE APPARENTLY COGNATE PHENOMENA 
OP MAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY. 

It required no small amount of moral courage, 
the Lecturer remarked, to undertake to speak 
publicly on a subject at which numbers look 
with suspicion ; some with singular scepticism ; 
some with horror or scorn ; — a subject, too, the 
results of which were held by many as imposture, 
or even akin to mysteries ascribed to unhallowed 
power ! 

Thus the phenomena which he had undertaken 
to illustrate under the title of Zoistic Magnet- 
ism, — a designation which he, (Dr. S.,) had 
adopted as more applicable to a subject known 
in remote ages, than that derived from the name 
of a modern practitioner — had been summarily 
denounced as unfitting for investigation, by 
more than one writer, under an apparently pious 
dread of an intermeddling with inhibited 
agencies. Thus in a published letter from Char- 



7 



4 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

lotte Elizabeth to Miss Martineu, which some 
person had anonymously sent him, the pheno- 
mena of Mesmerism, first assumed to be super- 
natural, are confidently attributed to Satanic 
agency ; — for if supernatural, it is asserted, they 
must necessarily be diabolical ! 

Much, however, as he, the Lecturer, estimated 
the piety of feeling which had urged this publi- 
cation, and the excellence of character of the 
writer, — he must, in self-justification when em- 
barking on a field of investigation so character- 
ised, say, — that the reasonings in support of the 
assumptions were as illogical, as the conclusions 
were devoid of proof. For so far from there 
being any ground for connecting Zoistic Magne- 
tism with supernatural agency, or an agency, such 
as had been asserted, of an unhallowed nature, — 
the close analogy of its phenomena, with the well 
known laws of Magnetism and Electricity, brought 
the subject fairly within the province of the 
Natural Sciences ; whilst the beneficial nature of 
the results of Zoistic Magnetism, as far as he had 
observed, in cases of disease, led him to ascribe 
these results to influences essentially belonging 
to the constitution of organized beings, and to an 
agency implanted by a beneficent Providence. 
Ami as surli, the phenomena must be worthy of 
similar consideration as that yielded to other 
departments of natural knowledge, and must, 
when duly elucidated, lead to similar results. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 5 

This at least must be the result of all enquiries 
into the Divine handy-work, humbly and rever- 
ently pursued, — the elucidation of " the eternal 
power and Godhead" of the Great Creator : and 
the subject now under consideration, belonging 
to the constitution of man, must be associated 
with the ' works of the Lord, which are great, 
sought out of all them that have pleasure 
therein.' 

But the objections made to the results asserted 
of Zoistic Magnetism, were only correspondent 
with frequent experience in other cases. The 
early history of science presented many similar 
examples ; evidence was rejected because the 
facts seemed inexplicable ; and persecution, was, 
in some cases, resorted to as the readiest process 
for disproving them. It was the characteristic 
of a comparatively barbarous age, to ascribe to 
witchcraft, the triumphs of superior intelligence, 
or to commit to the inquisition men of soaring 
genius who dared to adventure on new and better 
expositions of existing phenomena, and the cor- 
rection of existing errors. 

Every successive step, however, in inductive 
science, was a rebuke to popular scepticism, as 
to truth and fact. And many of the results in 
the scientific enterprize of modern times, had not 
only rebuked the questionings of multitudes, but 
had exhibited the most splendid examples of the 
triumph of human genius over pre-conceived ideas 



6 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

of the impossible. To catch a shadow was pro- 
verbial, even in our own recollection, as an im- 
possibility ; now, in the Daguerotype process, the 
shadow is actually caught, and indelibly im- 
pressed on a surface of metal ! " Swift as 
thought," was a recent idea of progress with 
which no agency available by man could compete ; 
yet as quick as thought, by means of the electric 
telegraph, may now our ideas be communicated 
from sea to sea across our island! And still 
discovery is advancing ; none can fix the limits 
of the possible. 

Various objections, indeed, were wont to be 
urged against experimenting on Zoistic Magne- 
tism, which, so far as they apply to useless exhi- 
bitions, might be well founded ; for it is neither 
fitting, nor may it always be safe, to perform such 
experiments for mere amusement. The story of 
a Phaeton, as to the disastrous result of an 
attempt to manage, with unskilful and presump- 
tuous hands, the chariot of his father, — was here- 
in shown, as to the moral of it, not to be fiction. 
Presumptuous adventurers in the departments of 
Zoistic Magnetism had sometimes, he believed, 
succeeded in evoking powers, which, to their 
dismay they found, they had not skill nor discre- 
tion to manage or controul. 

In many departments of science and know- 
ledge, indeed, the power of evoking an agent 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 7 

might exist without the skill to regulate or 
controul it. A child could kindle a flame which 
might defy the power of man to quench. In 
Magnetism, too, we could thus illustrate the point 
referred to. We shew a person, previously ignor- 
ant of Magnetics, the process of Magnetizing a 
bar or instrument of steel. He imitates our pro- 
cess, and succeeds in making the instrument 
Magnetic. But he will try in vain, unless pecu- 
liarly skilled, to reduce it again to a perfectly 
neutral state. 

But what may be unmeet for idle amusement, 
may be very proper for purposes of utility. For 
for objects of utility, — whether as to the investiga- 
tion of the physiology of the human system ; 
or whether as to the determining of the power 
of this agent in the relieving of human suffering, 
or curing of disease, — we had abundant grounds 
for justifying, yea for commending and extend- 
ing, experiments in this particular department of 
mysterious research. For all the arguments 
against Zoistic Magnetism, which have real found- 
ation, on account of dangers, or liabilities to 
abuse, go only, legitimately to shew, — the impor- 
tance of acquiring a correct knowledge of the 
laws under which such a powerful agent acts, in 
order to the administration of its influence bene- 
ficially, and, to secure, in such administration, 
against any probable dangers. 

The power referred to was, no doubt, of a 



8 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

wonderful and mysterious character. But the 
works of the Creator, in every department of 
observation and science, presented not only 
mysteries, but a world of wonders. Yet the 
reality of these wonderful things, mysterious as 
they might be, was not, could not, be denied. 

In illustration, in one department of science to 
which he had devoted much attention, of the 
reality of a wonderful and unseen agency, and 
its mysterious operations, he exhibited an experi- 
ment of his own with a plate of iron. The iron on 
being struck with the hand w T hilst held in a cer- 
tain direction, became magnetic, and would 
attract the north pole of the needle ; if struck 
whilst held in another direction, or pointed 
downwards, it would repel it, and if struck in 
a horizontal position would again loose all its 
powers, — phenomena, which being contemplated 
without knowledge of the cause, were involved 
in mystery as great as was the subject he had to 
bring before them ; but which, being referred to 
the inductive influence of terrestrial magnetism, 
became reasonably intelligible. 

It had been urged, again, as an objection to 
Zoistic Magnetism, being regarded as a science, 
that its results were not invariable, or reducible 
to fixed laws ; but this was readily explained by 
the ever-varying nature of the subjects of experi- 
ment : as the highly organized body and mind 
of a living being must necessarily be acted upon 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 9 

with less uniform results than the passive mater- 
ia^ operated upon in the purely physical sciences. 
As an illustration, however, of a somewhat ana- 
lagous diversity observable even in unorganized 
materials, he exhibited two bars of steel, pre- 
cisely the same in quality and appearance, one 
of which was scarcely affected by a powerful 
magnet, whilst the other became magnetic by a 
single touch ; the difference arising solely from 
their different degrees of hardness ; — thus, he 
argued, it was reasonable to anticipate a corres- 
ponding diversity in the influences of Mesmerism 
according to the diverse temperaments of the 
human system. But he might illustrate this 
analogy still further. He might take two bar 
magnets, — one of best cast steel, and made per- 
fectly hard, representing the operator ; the other 
of inferior steel, untempered or quite soft, repre- 
senting the subject. If he placed these magnets 
upon one another, with their corresponding pola- 
rities in contact, or, more especially, if he made 
magnetizing passes along each other in the 
direction adverse to their condition of magnetic 
tension, — then, it would be seen, that the weaker 
lost its characteristic magnetism and was reduced 
into conformity with the magnetism of the master- 
influence. 

This experiment might represent the case of 
two individuals trying their strength together, as 
to which could magnetically subdue the other ; 



10 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

— a case which actually happened in his own 
experience. He was residing, last October, in 
the same house with an interesting young friend, 
who was the first in whom he had succeeded in 
developing any striking phenomena. One even- 
ing whilst he was sitting after dinner, in an easy 
chair, his friend came up to him in a playful 
manner, took both his hands in hers, and looking 
him steadily in the face, said, "I'm going to 
mesmerise you," "Very well ; go on," was his 
reply. She did go on, he, at the same time, 
exerting his own magnetizing influences. But 
suddenly she became conscious of a most unex- 
pected influence in herself, almost closing her 
eyes. She darted off, under the surprise, utter- 
ing an amusing exclamation, — whilst he, Dr. S. 
remarked — "You have caught a Tartar,, Miss !" 

In whatever power, therefore, the lecturer 
argued, the development of the magnetic pheno- 
mena in the human subject may consist ; — whether 
in superiority of physical or mental strength, or 
nervous energy, — this fact is obvious, that, for 
success in the experiment, there must be superi- 
ority, either in the individual capabilities, or in 
the degree of nervous or magnetic energy exerted, 
in the agent in the operation. 

His attention had first been directed to this 
investigation partly by the very inconclusive and 
unsatisfactory nature of some public exhibitions 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 11 

which he had witnessed ; and partly by a very 
different result in the case of a lady in Exeter 
whom he was invited to visit, who had been 
recovered from most afflictive suffering under tic 
doloreux, and who, whilst he was present with 
her, exhibited phenomena of a very striking 
nature, the reality of which were indisputable. 

The result of his consideration of what he had 
witnessed and heard, was the determination, 
whenever opportunities might offer, to try for 
himself the asserted phenomena. And such op- 
portunities were not lacking. Up to the present 
time, he had reckoned rather more than thirty 
different cases whereon he had made trial ; and, 
including repetitions with the same subject, his 
various experiments had amounted to about 
seventy. 

As the individuals who had kindly submitted 
themselves to experiment, or, rather, of whose con- 
fidingness he had availed himself, were females — 
he had felt it due to himself, as well as to them, 
to have, at least, a third person present ; to have 
the consent of parents, or proper guardian in case 
of young persons ; or of the husband, in case of 
a wife. In two instances, only, had he departed 
from this rule. 

The objects he had had chiefly in view, since 
he had ascertained his personal capabilities of 
developing the condition of Zoistic Magnetism, 
were : the scientific investigation of facts and 



12 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

phenomena ; the magnetic or electric (?) physi- 
ology of the human system ; and any curative, 
or other beneficial effects or capabilities, of this 
powerful agency. 

He owed a debt of gratitude, which he had 
much satisfaction in expressing, to those who had 
submitted themselves to his experiments, as w-ell 
as to the parents or husbands who had sanctioned 
their so doing, whereby he had gained an amount 
of knowledge which, he hoped, would be found 
not only to be interesting, as related to the de- 
velopment of a curious series of facts ; but use- 
ful, as a contribution to general science, and, in 
regard of its curative applications, to humanity. 
That consideration for the feelings of those who 
had yielded him their confidence, in reference to 
a prevalent shrinking from publicity, had been 
duly regarded, he trusted, his communications 
now to be made would evince ; as, whatever use 
he might feel himself at liberty to make of facts, 
as such, he should in no case connect the facts 
with individuals unless by special permission. 

His own experiments, the lecturer proceeded 
to state, had been conducted principally, with 
previously untested subjects ; and these, except 
two, in a rank and condition of life affording the 
most satisfactory results, and the best security 
against either mistake or deception. Out of the 
entire number of cases he had tried, with ladies, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 13 

he had been successful in eliciting more or less 
of the characteristic phenomena of Zoistic Mag- 
netism in above one-half, and, generally, at the 
first trial. Out of about seventy experiments, less 
than one-third only had altogether failed ; whilst 
in nearly two-thirds, phenomena of an interesting 
nature had been elicited. 

He had proceeded in his investigations, since 
the time when they had become sufficiently 
specific in their developments, on the most rigid 
principles of inductive science ; noting, in the 
results, these phenomena only which were indis- 
putable. His attention, in accordance with the 
objects already set forth, had been principally 
directed to the physiological characteristics of 
this mysterious agency ; to the tracing of its 
apparent magneto-electric properties ; and to the 
capability of the influence of relieving human 
suffering, or curatively, to its action on disease. 

His first attempt was made, under not very 
favourable circumstances, Dec. 17th, 1845. An 
obvious influence, however, in one of two ladies 
who offered for the occasion, was produced. 

The sixth experiment, made July 17th, 1846, 
proved so satisfactory and beautiful, that the 
parties present were intensely interested, and 
none more than himself astonished, at the effects 
he had been the instrument of producing. 

The subject, in this case, was an elegant, talen- 
ted and accomplished girl of about sixteen. On 



14 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

witnessing the expression of exquisite enjoyment 
beaming in her countenance, her parents, who 
had previously been sceptical on the subject, were 
much affected, one of them, even to tears ; whilst 
another lady, being the only addition to the party j 
was so struck with the beauty of the countenance 
that she described it as "the face of an angel !" 
Her answers to questions which I proposed 
were indicative of a very pious condition of mind 
and of a feeling of felicity : — " I was never so 
happy in my life : I dont deserve to be so happy : 
it is heavenly !" — " I hope I am God's child : if I 
did not think so I could not be happy !" 

She was most unwilling to be awoke ; wishing 
to remain where she was all night. On being 
awoke, she felt very sleepy — and slept soundly 
and sweetly ; a long, refreshing sleep, and then 
arose, still ha^py, lively as the lark. Her feel- 
ings, during the night, she described as being 
singularly happy, — not so much in the circum- 
stance of dreams as in emotions, which, she 
described, as being of a pious and spiritual na- 
ture. The joyous feeling remained during the 
next day, and no reaction whatever took place. 

Experiments made with two interesting young 
ladies, sisters, in July of last year, afforded a 
number of very beautiful (though mesmerically 
considered, ordinary) phenomena. Both of them 
at different seances, fell into a species or filicitons 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 15 

trance. They conversed with the magnetizer 
freely ; but the voices of other persons in the 
room were inaudible to them. In one of the 
cases, his own voice was not heard when he re- 
tired out of contact with the subject. Passes 
from the head downward, quite clear of the 
dress, were distinctly felt, and elicited pleasur- 
able, sometimes delightful, sensations. His fingers 
being pointed downward, towards any part of 
the body or limbs, without contact of the dress, 
were felt. " It was," as one said, " as if something 
like electrical current was coming from him to 
her." Upward passes always had an unplea- 
sant effect, and changed the previously happy 
expression of the face into a frown. 

Contact of the hand of cny of the persons 
present, was unpleasant, and the intruding hand 
was always pushed off. When h* had taken the 
hand of one of the ladies (the sister of the subject 
of experiment) his own hand, he found, had 
acquired an uncongenial influence indicated by 
discomposure of the face, and the impatient 
remark, — "You touched Fanny; don't touch 
Fanny, she's not mesmerised." 

It might serve to illustrate the general state of 
feeling, in this and similar cases, Dr. S., remarked, 
as well as the self-possession and acuteness of 
the mental faculties— if he were to read, from 
his records of experiments, a part of the con- 
versation with Miss Jane L . 



16 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

This young lady, it might be premised, was 
about seventeen years of age — a frank, confiding 
and amiable person; with a pleasing generous 
expression of countenance. The idea of the 
ridiculous, in her situation on the sofa, occasioned, 
at first, much playfulness of remark, and frequent 
bursts of laughter. But these soon ceased and 
passed into a state of sweet composure. 

On first speaking to her, he, Dr. S., in a soft 
whisper, said — 

" Are you pleasant, Jane ?" 

The reply, very softly uttered, was — " yes." 

" Do you like it ?" 

" Very much." 

" Do you feel happy ?" 

" Very happy : it is delightful." 

" What makes you so happy ?" 

" I dont know : I am generally happy ; but I 
was never so happy before." 

Her face now beaming with a smile expressive 
of delight, he, Dr. S., said : — 

" You remind me of my sweet child, Flora," 
— the subject of his first interesting experiment — 
" but you do not know about her, do you ?" 

" Yes : Fanny told me about her." 

" Would you wish to be like her ?" 

" I should much like it." 

" But she is a very pious girl ; lives in the love 
of God : do you love God ?" 

" Yes, I hope I do." 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 17 

" If you do, my child, God loves you ; for we 
cannot love Him, you know, without His first 
loving us : Do you desire, then, to give yourself 
to Him r 

" Oh, yes, I wish to do so." 

"There is no happiness like that, and none 
without it." 

" Yes, I know it," — was the reply. 

"Do you think true religion is gloomy, or 
cheerful" ? 

"Oh : cheerful." 

"Cheerful," Dr. S. continued, " without levity. 
But can you distinguish the difference betwixt 
cheerfulness and levity ?" 

" There is a great difference." 

Recurring to a previous topic, Dr. S. then 
asked ; — 

" Do you still find it pleasant and happy being 
mesmerized ?" 

" It is delightful : I should like to be always 
so" : and then, with a peculiar ardour of express- 
ion, she added, — " It is not satanic — it is 
divine !" 

" If it produces in you," Dr. S. proceeded, 
" as I hope it does — pious feelings, I think you 
may say so." 

" It does." 

" But you know you could not be always so." 

" Why not ?" 

" Why ! you would not be as one of the seven 
sleepers ?" b 



18 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

" It would be very pleasant." 

" But you must eat and drink ?" 

"I don't want it." 

"You would like to know my child Flora/' 
Dr. S. continued, — ". would you not ? she is so 
interesting." 

" I should like it very much : but, I dare say" 
— she added, reflecting apparently on the descrip- 
tion given of her when mesmerized^ as being 
singularly lovely, — " I dare say you think me 
very ugly ?" 

" Why should you say that ? you do not think 
so ; female vanity would tell you otherwise." 

" Men are more vain ;" was the prompt reply. 

"Women," Dr. S. playfully added, "you 
know, are characteristically vanity." 

" Men are more so" — she tersely replied. 

" Yet, though you may think so, you cannot 
do well without them." 

Very dryly, she responded, and in a manner 
which caused a general burst of surprize and 
laughter : — 

" They are very well in their way /" 

At a more advanced period of the evening, after 
eliciting, in conversation, several of the peculiar- 
ities and phenomena already described, Dr. S. 
contemplating the placid, happy-looking face of 
bis youno- friend, renewed his questionings, by 
Baying : — 

" I wi^h your mamma could ?ee you now : I 
think she would be interested." 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 19 

u Oh, I wish dear mamma was here ; and that 
she was mesmerized ; it would make her so 
happy." — " I wish they were all mesmerized, 
it is so delightful." 

u Do you think"- -alluding to a slight lameness, 
attended wdth some pain, in one of the ladies 
present, Dr. S. continued, — u that mesmerizing 
would do Mrs. S good ?" 

"Yes: it would." 

" But would it, think you, cure her lameness." 

" No : I don't think it would ; but then she 
w r ould be so happy that she would lose the pain." 

" But suppose you were lame, would it, think 
you, do you good ?" 

u I'm not lame : so I don't need it." 

These selections from the conversation which 
passed, in this interesting case, he, the Lecturer 
had given, for the purpose of illustration as he had 
before intimated. The whole was characterized 

by similar liveliness and readiness. Mr. S , 

indeed, at whose house the experiment was 
made, remarked, that it w r as like the effect 
of machinery. No time seemed to intervene 
betwixt the question and answer. The reply 
was generally instantaneous. So surprized, in- 
deed, was this gentleman, who had previously 
considered mesmerism as mainly imposture, and 
many of its pretensions humbug ; that, fre- 
quently, when he witnessed strange results, which 
he now felt were realities, he threw up his hands, 
exclaiming, — " astonishing !" " wonderful !" 



20 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

In the experiments with these young ladies, as 
well as in numerous other cases which he detailed, 
the principle of attraction was strikingly mani- 
fested. Not only was the hand of the subject 
raised and moved in various directions, by the 
proximate influence of his finger, without contact ; 
but, in some cases, the subject, when placed on 
her feet, would follow him in her trance, with the 
eyes firmly closed, amid the scattered furniture 
of the room — walking against the table, as the 
shortest way in the direction of the attracting 
influence, when he had quickly stepped round 
behind it — and moving backward, and then slowly 
turning round, when he had silently, without his 
shoes, slipped unexpectedly behind her. Music, 
in one of these instances, produced a great effect ; 
the time and rhythm of the air being evidently 
marked, and responded to in motion, as in waltz- 
ing, — the influence being irresistible, although 
giddiness and discomfort were the result. 

The general state of feeling, he remarked, 
which had been elicited by the magnetic con- 
dition, was, in his experiments, that of happiness, 
often of extreme enjoyment. In all his successful 
experiments, indeed, he had met with only two or 
three exceptions, and these in the case of subjects 
of very nervous temperament. But in no case 
did any unpleasant effects remain. 

He had always found them ready to converse, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 21 

after he himself had spoken to them ; but not 
to commence a new conversation (that is, un- 
stimulated by word or act) or voluntarily to start 
a new subject, or offer a gratuitous remark. He 
might except, however, a cataleptic case ; as also 
that of a very intelligent young lady, who would 
sometimes pursue a subject of thought, of her own 
accord, which had been suggested by previous 
questions. He should further observe, with 
respect to the numerous conversations he had 
held, that in no one instance had an expres- 
sion ever been uttered, by the subjects of his 
experiments, which they could have cared for 
being published to the world. Of the effect of 
an improper question, of his subjects, he could 
only judge by the self-possession, and the pro- 
priety ever indicated in what he had witnessed ; 
and his decided judgment was, that, could he have 
made an unfitting enquiry of any of his subjects 
of experiment, he would have been answered 
with such rebuke as the abuse of his position 
might have deserved ! 

The Memory of the magnetized persons was 
found to be extremely quick and perfect. All 
information acquired previously was forthcoming, 
if solicited ; the remembrance of facts and con- 
versations was vivid ; and the recollection of 
former conversations when in the magnetic 
state (which were utterly forgotten in the ordi- 



22 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

nary waking state) was equally quick and accu- 
rate. For, as a general fact, it was observed, 
that, where there had been a due extent of the 
magnetic influence, no knowledge of what had 
passed, during the state of sleep, remained after 
the party was awoke. Indeed every 'peculiar 
effect and influence seemed, in a moment, after 
the opening of the eyes, to have passed away. 
The presence of the magnetizer, which before 
had been so strongly desired ; the positive enjoy- 
ment of his proximity, or the painful feeling indi- 
cated if he retired out of juxtaposition ; the 
repugnance to the approach of other persons, or 
consciousness of any difference in influence from 
the approach of those in the room, — all vanished 
with the cessation of the magnetic sleep ! 

These remarks, however, he should observe, 
applied chiefly, as general phenomena, to a par- 
ticular stage of the magnetic influence, and to 
the result of experiments cautiously performed. 
For where cross or disturbing magnetisms had 
been unduly permitted, or where the state of 
coma had been very deep, both the progress of 
the awakening, and the state of feeling when 
awoke, were sometimes much otherwise. 

The effects of his experiments, on different 
individuals, and sometimes (though not so usual) 
in different seances, were very various as to the 
degree of depth of the sleep, the susceptibility to 



ZOISTiC MAGNETISM. 23 

external influences, and the variety of the pheno- 
mena elicited. Sometimes the influence was so 
partial that the eyes would be closed without 
the loss of consciousness or any other faculty. 
Persons in the room were then heard when speak- 
ing, or moving, and were readily discriminated. 
Their touch was instantly distinguished from that 
of the Magnetizer, and either discouraged, or 
remarked on as unpleasant. Bat in other cases, 
all consciousness of the presence, or voice of 
others, whilst remaining seated at a distance, 
ceased ; though their approach to the Magnetized 
subject was generally felt, so as to produce dis- 
turbance, even whilst they were several yards off ; 
and approach into contact, if inadvertently per- 
mitted, had sometimes painfully disturbing or 
unpleasant effects. There were cases, indeed, in 
which rude contact might have been dangerous. 
With one young lady, who had become so sus- 
ceptible that he had been able to close her eyes 
in four or five seconds of time, — a spontaneous 
influence took place when he was magnetizing 
her sister in the same room. Once when she 
was removed some yards from them, her eyes 
were suddenly and unexpectedly closed — on 
which she called out — " I can't open my eyes." 
This effect, however, Dr. S. ascribed to the ima- 
gination and sympathy of the individual ; for the 
result was very different from that when she had 
been duly and specifically magnetized. Tn the 



24 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

spontaneous case, she described the effect as con- 
sisting only in the closing of the eyes — as in all 
other respects her faculties were unaffected ; but 
when she was duly acted upon, she said, " she 
felt mesmerized all over." 

The eliciting of sympathy of the senses, was the 
highest species of phenomena, among those usually 
referred to mesmeric power, which he, Dr. S., had 
succeeded in developing. Phenomena, of this 
species, occurred on the first trial of a lady, 
a much attached friend, in Exeter. She was not 
only aware, (being with one hand in contact,) 
when he drank anything, however cautiously, 
with his face turned away, but instantly, on being 
asked, stated what it was — as "wine" — "water." 
And on his being pinched in the arm, she com- 
plained spontaneously of her own corresponding 
arm. When his foot was unexpectedly trod 
upon, she drew her foot up under her dress, 
complaining that it cramped her foot. And like- 
wise, on his head being rapped with the knuckles 
of a friend, she put her hand to her own head 
and expressed discomfort or pain. 

But results of this order, still more interesting, 
were elaborately developed in other cases and 
experiments. In one of these — the case of Miss 

Mary P , an elegant and interesting young 

friend, — the sensibility and sympathy were, on 
the first trial, so peculiarly elicited, as to yield a 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 25 

fair expectation of realizing ultimately, (if any 
where,) the higher phenomena asserted of Zoistic 
Magnetism. But opportunity, unfortunately, 
was not afforded for the full investigation. 

In another case, however, where the circum- 
stances were more favourable for a long and 
careful seance, the results were of such peculiar 
interest as to deserve to be described more in 
detail. 

The subject, in this instance, was an interest- 
ing girl of about fifteen — a member of a pious 
family — whose confiding and affectionate dispo- 
sition, with peculiar sensitiveness and playfulness, 
had brought about, mutually, a rather favourable 
acquaintance some weeks before. 

On the very first trial (a trial recently made), 
the phenomena arising out of community of taste 
and sensation, were developed in a very high 
degree, as would be shewn, satisfactorily, he, Dr. 
S. believed, by the particulars he was about to 
give taken from his manuscript records of per- 
sonal experiments in Zoistic Magnetism. He 
should proceed at once to the description of the 
experiments in this particular department of 
research, merely premising, that his young friend 
was in the state usually called, " sleep-waking," 
with her eyes completely closed ; that she was 
lying on a couch, he being seated on a chair by 
the side of it ; and that, throughout these experi- 



26 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

ments, lie always maintained his contact, by 
holding her left hand with his right. 

A tumbler glass, containing some water, having, 
at r* r . S.'s intimation^ been cautiously put on a 
chair and pushed forward within reach, (this 
caution being requisite from the extreme sensi- 
tiveness of the subject) Miss Anna shrunk, as if 
uncomfortable, the moment he took hold of it. 
The fact of the discomfort, he might observe, was, 
in this and in many other cases, determined, by 
a peculiar tremulous grasp of his hand, with 
which he kept his connection with his young 
friend, — which, like the delicate perception of the 
fisherman through the medium of his rod, of the 
smallest touch on his bait or line, afforded a gene- 
ral and most sensitive test of any discomfort, or 
disturbance, in the subject of experiment. 

On realizing this sign of discomfort in Miss 
Anna, when he took up the glass, he asked, — 

" What is it you dislike?" 

u That cold thing," — she replied. 

"What is it?" 

" A glass ; — I don't like it it is so cold." 

Drinking a portion of it, with his head turned 
away, he continued his enquiries,- - 

" What is it that I tasted ?" 

" Water" — she instantly replied ; " but I don't 
like it." 

Considering that this repugnancy arose from 
the incongenial magnetic or electric condition of 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 27 

the glass, from its having been touched by other 
hands, or not duly assimilated with his own 
touch, he passed the fingers of his left hand over 
it whilst it rested on the chair, and darted the 
points of his fingers towards, sometimes so as to 
touch, the surface of the water. 

On his again tasting it, she manifested less 
repugnance. 

" It is not now so unpleasant," she said, on the 
enquiry being made, " as it was." 

Repeating the magnetizing manipulations on 
the glass, Dr. S. tried the experiment of drinking 
a third time : Anna now expressed no particular 
dislike to it. Probably, had the process been 
continued, her dislike would have changed to the 
converse. 

Wine, was then handed to him, Dr. S., in a 
wine-glass, and, as in the other case, through the 
medium of the chair. On his tasting it, though 
with his face turned quite away from the sofa, the 
effect was obviously very disagreeable to Anna. 
This feeling was not only indicated by the 
peculiar tremulous or spasmodic action with the 
fingers, but strongly marked in the change of the 
previously happy expression of countenance. 

" It is wine ;" she said, " and I don't like it." 

" I taste it in my mouth : it goes into my head." 

On repeating the trial very cautiously at a 
subsequent period in the seance, she instantly de- 
tected it, and, on the enquiry being put, she 
said, — 



28 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

" I don't like wine : I never take it : it is dis- 
agreeable : don't take any more." 

" What have I ?" asked Dr. S. 

" You have half a glass of wine." — It was pre- 
cisely so ! 

Mrs. G , who was present, on being beck- 
oned to stretch out her hand towards his, did so 
till the points of their fingers came into contact. 
Anna immediately noticed it, and begged him 
not to touch any one — or, not to let any one 
touch him. 

He next beckoned for some article standing by 
the fire-place, which was immediately handed to 
him, but so much behind and beneath the level 
of the sofa, as to have been invisible to Anna, 
had her eyes been open. She instantly felt it, 
and expressed dislike. On being asked, " why ?" 
she said— " it is cold." "What is it ?" "The 
poker." 

In the like guarded manner, Mrs. G , keep- 
ing in a stooping position and still under the 
screen of the head of the sofa, handed the experi- 
menter a variety of articles, most of which Anna 
described (evidently from the sensations pro- 
duced) correctly, — that is, as to their nature, or 
the material of which they were composed. A 
mistake occurred in the case of a tea-kettle of 
tinned-iron, taken from the hob, the handle of 
which was warm — just about blood-heat: — this 
she mistook for wood ! 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 29 

Unexpectedly, as far as Dr. S. was concerned, 
Mrs. G. pinched his foot ; immediately Anna in- 
dicated discomfort. 

"What is it," Dr. S. asked; " where did you 
feel any thing ?" 

« In my foot." 

<• Which foot ?" 

"The left." 

" Which now ?" — Mrs. G. having changed to 
the other. 

" The right." 

" Where now ?" — Dr. S. continued to enquire, 
as Mrs G. pushed the point of a hard substance 
against his leg, — " where now ?" 

" My foot" — was still the reply. 

All the persons present were here much 
amused by finding how much she was alive to the 
nicities of the most scrupulous conventionals, as 
it clearly came out when Dr. S. said, — 

" It is not the foot." 

" Yes ; the foot. . . above the ancle /" 

The various answers given to questions put to 
this amiable young person were very interesting, 
as characterized by intelligence, appropriateness 
and piety of feeling. 

In another case, which had very striking and 
interesting results, — that of a Lady of much 
energy, frankness, and individuality of character, 
— the community of taste and sensation were 
highly developed. 



30 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

Miss H 's condition, generally indeed, was 

analagous to several that he had witnessed, — in 
sensibility to the approach of others than the 
Magnetizer ; in felicity of feeling when the oper- 
ator held her hands, and no cross-magnetism, nor 
movements in the room took place ; and in un- 
consciousness of the voices, either when speaking 
or singing, of those in the room. 

She did not generally specify what article was 
touched by him, Dr. S. but always felt any con- 
tact, or even proximity of persons or things 
brought near him. Every such exercise of sen- 
sation was unpleasant to her. She participated 
with him in the taste of water, and wine ; both 
of which she disliked. On his biting a bit oif a 
mint lozenge, she complained strongly against the 
injury to the teeth, and remonstrated with him 
for eating " such a vulgar thing." — But tincture 
of rhubarb, which, unwittingly to Dr. S., was 
handed to him, produced, immediately on his 
tasting it, (though with his head turned away) 
exclamations and actions singularly expressive of 
the most extreme disgust. All the natural indi- 
cations of dislike he bad ever seen in children, 
whilst taking nauseous medicines, characterized 
as such indications were by the entire unreserve 
of expression in children, both in word and cir- 
cumstance, — were embodied in the case of Miss 
H , in the experiment referred to ! 

Hf> might just add, w itli regard to this very 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 31 

interesting case, that the sensibility of Miss 

H , to the movements of the persons in the 

room where she was, and even in an adjoining 
room having an open door betwixt, was singular- 
ly acute and surprising. Movements of the several 
persons around, though they might be seven or 
eight yards off, were both noticed and shewn to 
be disturbing, sometimes very distressing. Even 
the movements of two canary-birds, just behind 
the sofa, were unpleasantly felt. 

The day after this experiment, Miss H 

described to him, Dr. S., in very striking and 
intelligent terms, the progress and changes, with- 
in the limits she could remember, in her feelings 
— her felicities and her disturbances. Her first 
peculiar perception, which occurred a few minutes 
after all the parties had taken their places, was 
as if a cloud were coming before her eyes, — in- 
creasing so in density as to produce an effect 
like that observed in "dissolving views :" all 
objects became gradually obscure and successively 
vanished, except the Magnetizer ; him she 
saw a long time, his eyes appearing shining like 
two bright lights. At first, and whilst she was 
undisturbed, her feelings were perfectly felicitous : 
she felt as if she was in an ethereal region (a feel- 
ing remarkably indicated in the expression of her 
countenance), elevated, as in a commanding or 
superior position, above all who were present. 



32 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

A still more admirable and extraordinary case, 
however, came within his, Dr. S's, experience, 
which, merely noticing it at present, he would 
reserve for farther description. 

It was a cataleptic case — the only specific one of 
the kind he had had, — in which the senses, gene- 
rally, were inoperative, whilst the community of 
taste was such, as, by repeated trials was proved, 
not only to be realized when other parties were 
interposed betwixt the operator and the subject, 
but when the operator was entirely out of con- 
tact, and, had her eyes been open, out of sight ! 

In the investigations hitherto described, in- 
teresting, and, in many particulars, extraordinary 
as they might seem, he, Dr. S., had not proceeded 
in the development of phenomena to the extent 
attained, he believed, by many others in this 
department of the human physiology. Several 
degrees or stages, so to speak, of characteristic 
phenomena, had been described by writers on 
this subject : these to which distinctive differences 
might be ascribed, belonging to his own investiga- 
tions, comprised, as he conceived, the following : — 

1. A perceptible magnetic action, as observed 
in the eyes of the subject, with, perhaps, some 
dimness of sight, or heat of the forehead, but 
without sleep. This state he had found sufficient 
for soothing persons in a condition of excited 
feeling, or suffering under local pain. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 33 

2. A closing of the eyes, generally without 
power in the subject of opening them ; but in 
other respects full consciousness of what was 
passing, and a capability of conversing with 
those around. Sometimes the attraction in this 
stage was found to be such as to cause the sub- 
ject, if duly raised and placed on the floor of the 
room, to follow the magnetizer. 

3 . Sleep-waking, or somnambulism, in which the 
subject converses with the magnetizer only, but 
does not hear other persons ; great sensitiveness 
to the approach of any person, but the operator ; 
with the exhibition, when consistently magnetised, 
of a kind of polarity, comprising the experience 
of pleasurable feelings by contact or passes on 
the proper side, such as by the operator's right 
hand on the left side, and repellant or painful 
feelings, by contact or passes on the wrong side. 

4. Sleep-waking, with the perception, in the 
subject, of sensations, either by taste, or by feel- 
ing, induced on the operator ; at the same time, 
in certain cases, insensibility to pain, when 
pinched or pricked, for instance, on the proper 
side, by the Magnetizer. This, as well as the 
stage preceding it, has been generally found (no 
cross or interfering magnetism being permitted) 
to be a condition of great enjoyment, and, not 
unfrequently, of peculiar felicity. 

5. Sleep of insensibility, in which, — whilst 
there may be sympathy of taste with the Mag- 



34 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

netizer, or great experience of happiness, with 
singing, talking of things or places mentally con- 
templated, — the senses are not susceptible of 
personal impressions ; so that treatment which, 
at other times, would occasion severe pain, is not 
felt, and objects placed before the eyes, though 
they might frequently be open, are not seen. 
This condition, it is hardly necessary to say, is 
one of those in which surgical operations may 
be performed without pain, or consciousness of 
injury, to the magnetized patient. 

As to these definitions, however, derived, as 
they avowedly were, from his own investigations 
solely, he, Dr. S., must guard himself by saying, 
that he by no means puts them forth as being 
universally appropriate. For although he was 
fully authorized, he considered, in giving them, 
with some confidence, in their relation to his 
personal investigations, he could not assume, — 
after the experience he had had of the extraor- 
dinary and unexpected contradictions of what 
might have been fairly predicated, — that they 
would in all cases, even within their respective 
stages or degrees, be found to apply. The ex- 
perience already acquired, indeed, would lead 
him to suppose it to be not improbable, but that, 
as general definitions, they would include or de- 
termine, too much. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 35 

The analogies of phenomena in Zoistic Mag- 
netism, included in the definitions he had 
been submitting, with familiar facts in ordinary 
magnetism (not now to extend them to the 
equally striking relations they bore to certain 
electrical phenomena) might, as the Lecturer 
shewed, be thus illustrated experimentally. 

The principle of attraction, admitted of a 
simple illustration in the ordinary experiments 
of the attraction of iron, or of concealed magnets 
in floating toys, by the magnet. 

By the action of a magnet on a needle suspen- 
ded on an universal joint, which Dr. S. exhibited, 
it was seen, that in the following of the marked 
end by the south pole of the bar magnet which 
he moved near it, or in the receding of the same 
end from the contrary pole of the magnet, — a 
fair illustration was yielded of the attractive and 
repellant effects of the dissimilar or similar 
hands of the operator in Zoistic Magnetism, on 
those of the subject of experiment. 

And of the general sympathy of the subject 
with the operator, whether as to movements or 
otherwise, — he submitted an experiment, which, 
on the plan he had adopted, any persons, provided 
with a small bar magnet, and a bar of iron like 
it, could make for themselves. A small bar of 
iron, which he now exhibited, seven or eight 
inches long, he would place on the glass of his 
watch whilst the watch lay on the table ; in this 



36 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

case the convex surface of glass, being touched 
only by the polished piece of iron in a point, 
acted as a convenient pivot. So placed, the iron 
was inert, and indifferent to any particular posi- 
tion. But he now placed over it, say two or three 
inches distant, a strong bar magnet of similar size. 
Instantly, it was found, the iron bar had been 
mesmerized by the juxta-position, and would now" 
follow the master magnet, as he turned it round, 
and would sympathize, as it was seen, in all its 
motions ! 

The analogy of the processes employed for the 
developing of the magnetic condition, in both 
Zoistic and ordinary magnetism, was, as Dr. S., 
experimentally shewed, equally close and inter- 
esting. As to the process generally employed in 
his experiments, this analogy was necessarily 
close ; because he had been guided, in regard to 
its mode and manipulations, by pre-consideration 
of what he knew respecting the magnetizing of 
steel. But the remarkably influential results of 
this process — hereafter to be more fully described 
— justified, he conceived, the relations and ana- 
logies he had been led to assume. 

Witness, further, the analogy traceable betwixt 
the Zoistic and unorganic magnetism, in regard 
to the different degrees of tension or energy 
developed by mere contact, and by manipulation 
with passes. Let us take, for instance, said the 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 37 

Lecturer, a straight bar of soft steel, unmagne- 
tized ; and place it, first of all, betwixt the 
opposite poles of two strong bar magnets, and a 
small degree of magnetic power, is, we find, de- 
veloped. But let us make passes from the middle 
of the bar to the end without contact, (strokes 
with the opposite poles of two bar magnets being 
at the same time made, whilst a slip of card- 
board was interposed, from the middle to the 
extremities of the bar laid on the table) and 
mark the effect : — the previously weak and im- 
perfectly magnetized bar now lifts, though no 
actual contact has been made, an ordinary port- 
manteau key. In the employment, however, of 
two bars of the horse-shoe form, one of them mag- 
netic, the other to be operated on, these effects 
might, perhaps, prove to be still more analogous. 
By the use of the same apparatus, he, Dr. S. 
might illustrate a further analogy in the demes- 
merizing processes. In order to this he w^ould 
take the soft steel bar already magnetized, 
which, it would be observed, could sustain a key 
of moderate size. Whilst the key was thus sus- 
tained by the bar on the stand, he would make a 
stroke (or pass) with the adverse pole of the bar 
magnet, from the end supporting the key, to- 
wards the other extremity. The key now, as 
would be observed, fell, and the pole recently so 
energetic, was seen to be demagnetized. # 

*This experiment to be demagnetizing to the extent of both poles, requires a 
cbange of the poles of the magnet after passing the middle of the bar operated on 
so that the two polarities may be respectively subdued. 



38 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

For this experiment represented, with consider- 
able closeness, the usual mode of demesmerizing 
by reverse passes, though the result seemed also 
to be promoted (along with other means of a 
different kind) by lateral passes across the face 
and chest. In his own practice, indeed, he was 
very generally able to awaken his subjects in the 
manner he should describe, viz., by first gaining 
their assent to his so doing, by a representation 
to them of his reasons — the wish, for instance, 
or request, of parents or other persons having a 
right to controul ; or, as to himself, the lateness of 
the hour, or other engagements : — and, when the 
assent had been gained, by breathing, or blowing 
softly, on the upper part of the face, over the 
eyes. Sometimes, however, a considerable time 
was requisite, with the employment of reverse 
passes, &c, in order that no discomfort or in- 
convenience might result. 

This simple process of demagnetizing, how- 
ever, generally as he had found it available, was 
not sufficient, he might observe, in all the cases 
which had come within his own experience. And 
as in a cataleptic case he had found it better, in 
regard to the securing of his confiding subject 
against unpleasant effects, to leave the dispersion 
or neutralization of the magnetizing influence to 
quiet and undisturbed repose, rather than to pro- 
ceed in efforts for awakening beyond the simple 
and gentle means he had ordinarily employed, — 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 39 

so he believed it-had been generally found, that, 
in all cases of difficulty, this, of all other courses, 
was the safest and the best, — viz., to allow the 
subject or patient to sleep it out. 



LECTURE II. 

CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE HIGHER, AND WHAT MIGHT 
BE DEEMED MORE QUESTIONABLE, PHENOMENA, ASCRIBED 
TO THE PROVINCE OF ZOISTIC MAGNETISM J ADDITIONAL 
AND ORIGINAL DEVELOPMENTS AND RESULTS OF FURTHER 
PERSONAL RESEARCHES ; WITH AN EXPOSITION OF THE RA- 
TIONALE AND PROBABLE PHILOSOPHY OF THIS MYSTERIOUS 
AGENCY. 



In the previous Lecture, he, Dr. Scoresby, had 
described, and had illustrated by experiments in 
another department of science, his researches in, 
what might be characterized as, the ordinary 
facts and phenomena of Zoistic Magnetism. His 
purpose generally had been, not to startle by 
questionable assertions concerning astounding 
wonders ; but to appeal to the understanding of 
his audience, whilst justifying, on scientific ana- 
logies, the grounds of his own belief. Hence he 
had confined himself, in his descriptions of phe- 
nomena, altogether to what had been deve- 
loped by his own researches, — mentioning only 
what he had seen with his own eyes, wrought, 
instrumentally, with his own hands and magnetic 
influence, and tested, as far as he was able, by his 
own experience and judgment. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 41 

Taking nothing for granted, he had thus en- 
deavoured to make his ground good at every step. 
Starting, he believed, with a mind in a condition 
of enquiry, and with as much reserve of judgment 
as he could command, as to what might probably 
be matters of fact, — a reserve, however, siding 
more with doubt and questionings than with pre- 
possession or credulity, — he himself felt, as he 
trusted would be felt by others, that the progress 
he had in this wise made, was the more satisfac- 
tory and conclusive. 

Hence the developments already given, or yet 
to be given, would be found useful, he hoped, 
(inferior as they were to the records of others 
who had been digging longer and deeper in the 
same field) for enabling those whom he addressed 
to appreciate the facts ; and in some measure to 
discriminate betwixt the real and the unreal — 
betwixt fact and error — betwixt true philosophic 
phenomena and mere superstition, — betwixt the 
living wonders of the operations of Divinely plant- 
ed laws in man, and the morbid creations of timid 
apprehensions, or pious jealous dread of baneful 
mysteries. 

And the discrimination betwixt fact and error, 
he, Dr. S., might remind the audience, is not a 
matter of indifference even in science. We may 
dishonour the Great Author of Creation by deny- 
ing the facts concerning His wonderful works ; 
as we dishonour the Great Author of Revelation 



42 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

by denying the truths of the Bible. Not, indeed, 
that the rejection of truths in philosophy may be 
injurious to our best interests, like scepticism in 
religion; but yet our scientific scepticism may 
be dishonouring to God's handy-work, and dis- 
advantageous, socially, intellectually, and influ- 
entially, to ourselves! If science has suffered 
damage by the religious scepticism of some of its 
advocates ; so religion, it might be easily shewn, 
has not unfrequently suffered injury, (with re- 
flective, intelligent minds,) from the scientific 
scepticism, or unreasonable denouncements of 
scientific developements, by some of its zealous 
and pious supporters ! 

Of the higher phenomena, as usually described, 
he had not himself had, until after the commence- 
ment of his lectures, any satisfactory examples. 
And though since then he had met with some new 
and remarkable phenomena, in a department of 
this field of research beyond what he had pre- 
conceived to be demonstrated fact ; he could not, 
at present at least, receive in the same light, cer- 
tain statements of a peculiar species of clairvoy- 
ance, &c, which were popularly set forth. 

Whilst submitting, however, his personal im- 
pressions, it was but fair towards others more ex- 
perienced than himself in this special etherial 
field of the human physiology, to say, that, in 
giving any opinion respecting certain phenomena, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 43 

he claimed no presumptuous right of judgment 
beyond what belonged to any one, who, with a 
reasonable experience in the niceties of scientific 
research, had had corresponding opportunities of 
arriving at a fair conclusion. And even if his 
judgment should be supported, when he might 
object, by the analogies of science and research in 
cognate phenomena, — he should still claim for it 
only such consideration as might be due to his 
grounds of objection, according to their satisfac- 
toriness or deservings. 

In truth, whilst at the beginning of his re- 
searches, he felt, in common with multitudes of 
others, not only great hesitation in receiving, but 
much boldness in rejecting, statements which he 
had deemed inconsistent with the essential rela- 
tions of cause and effect, — he had been taught cau- 
tion, by experience, as to what might be justly or 
safely denied, from the circumstance of pheno- 
mena, respecting which he had had strong doubts, 
being forced upon him as truths by incontrovert- 
ible evidence and demonstration. So that whilst 
he could not yet receive, some phenomena 
asserted of Zoistic Magnetism, as facts, — and 
for reasons which he would state, — yet develop- 
ments of an order so much higher than what he 
had contemplated, had so unexpectedly arisen out 
of his own experiments, as to induce that caution 
in denying, or hesitation in disbelieving, to 
which he now adverted. 



44 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

His own experiments, indeed, numerous and 
varied as, in their subjects and circumstances, 
they had been, were yet, in certain departments 
of this interesting field of research, necessarily 
defective, because of their having been made 
(except in two or three casesj on persons in a 
state of health; whilst it was reasonable to 
believe, that, in many cases of disease, the ner- 
vous influence — so specially acted on in Zoistic 
Magnetism— would be peculiarly sensitive and 
influential. Cases, indeed, of persons out of 
health were by no means of rare or questionable 
occurrence, in which extraordinary acuteness of 
the senses, nervous susceptibility to external 
influences, pr oneness to somnambulism, &c, had 
been witnessed and recorded as phenomena result- 
ing spontaneously from disease, analogous to those 
developed by mesmeric manipulation. In cases 
so predisposed to results of the nature of these de- 
veloped by Zoistic Magnetism, therefore, it could 
not be unreasonable to expect phenomena, within 
the limits of the powers implanted in the human 
organization, of a still higher order than what 
he, Dr. S., had been able to elicit. 

The evidence of phreno-magnetism, or excite- 
ment of the cerebral organs, which he had ob- 
tained in his own experiments, — though he had 
frequently made trials in this department of 
Zoistic Magnetism — had not hitherto been satis- 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 45 

factory. So that, although he had witnessed 
several cases by other hands, which he could not 
but think to have been real ; his own mind was 
still in abeyance as to the question, — whether the 
results sprung independently, from an action on 
the phrenological organs ? or dependency, from 
the influence of the will and special purpose of 
the manipulating agent in the experiments ? 

In the department of clairvoyance, his, Dr. 
Scoresby's, experience had been but very slight. 
He had never witnessed any of the performances 
of persons known or assumed to possess this 
faculty ; nor had he met with cases, beyond what, 
in the course of this lecture, he should have occa- 
sion to describe, which had yielded examples of 
phenomena, of the nature of those usually charac- 
terized as clairvoyant. And, as to the glimpses 
which he had had of these ordinarily latent mys- 
teries in the constitution of man, — he had some 
personal gratification in saying, that they were 
completely within the imaginable limits, he had 
for himself assigned, to the philosophic relations 
of cause and effect. 

Of some of the alleged phenomena, however, 
— such as those of a prophetic nature, in which 
real predictions, not chance guesses, respecting 
circumstances dependent on the operations of the 
human will and actions, are asserted to have been 
given ; or of the determination of things, abso- 



46 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

lutely unknown to the clairvoyant or to any per- 
son around him, then passing, or having recently 
passed, in distant places or regions ; or of the 
sudden acquisition of languages, or subjects of 
knowledge, previously unlearnt and unheard, — he, 
Dr. S., must avow himself altogether sceptical : 
nay, he must consider them, so far as his own 
judgment could enable him to form an opinion, 
as delusive, or mistaken, or not thoroughly tested, 
assumptions : — assumptions, also, adverse to the 
most universally established laws of physical 
science — the laws of cause and effect — and, as 
such, what he decidedly believed might be pro- 
nounced impossibilities ! 

In his earlier consideration of other phenomena 
ascribed to the clairvoyant state, he had associa- 
ted with what he had just referred to, the state- 
ments concerning a power of reading through 
opaque substances, or of deciphering written or 
printed documents by the touch of the hand, or 
contact with the back of the head, the sole of 
the foot, or other parts of the surface of the 
human frame. But difficult as it might be to 
conceive of the accomplishment of ends belonging 
specially, apparently, to the organ of sight — an 
organ so beautifully, and, as an optical instru- 
ment, in many respects, so intelligibly construc- 
ted, — by parts of the system not designed by the 
Creator, as it should seem, for effecting such 
purposes at all ; yet he must modify his former 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 47 

views so far, (whilst not himself convinced of the 
reality of the power asserted to exist) as to 
separate this class of phenomena from that of the 
prophetic kind.* 

Consistently, however, with the phenomenon of 
the transmission of sensation, from the agent to 
the subject, under the influence of Zoistic Mag- 
netism, — which his own experiments had abun- 
dantly confirmed — he saw no impossibility in the 
transfer of thought and feeling, to the extent of 
receiving the picture in the mind of one, when 
en rapport, upon the mind of the subject under 
the higher influence of this mysterious agency. 

That pictures in the mind of the magnetizer, 
might be transferred — as the camera obscura 
transfers the external scene into a picture within 
■ — he not only thought to be within the reason- 
able limits of possibility ; but he must candidly 
state, that he thought evidence had been adduced, 
by men of unquestionable reputation and acknow- 
ledged talent, such as, if not to convince the un- 



*In justice to a scientific friend who had gently remonstrated with Dr. S. on 
account of his statement, in a former lecture, of unbelief of what this friend con- 
sidered to be facts in his own experience, — the Author adds an extract from his 
letter, which, in respect to one point referred to above, is, he admits, if not of con- 
clusive, at least, of fair application. — " It is really no more inexplicable'' his friend 
writes, " that the clairvoyant should be able to see through an ordinarily opaque 
body, than that your magnet (referring to an experiment Dr. S. had described in 
which a compass was moved through the body of a railway engine by a magnet at 
the opposite side, just as if there were nothing betwixt) should be able to see 
through the steam-engine boiler I Both aie equally above mere human knowledge, 
but nothing more." 



48 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

prejudiced enquirer, at least to demand caution 
in denying the statements to be, in reality, facts. 

But whilst admitting, in all fairness and can- 
dour to others, so much in respect of what he, 
Dr. S., deemed not improbable developments in 
the region of clairvoyance ; he felt bound to jus- 
tify, as to other and still more difficult pheno- 
mena, his own distinctive declaration of unbelief. 

His grounds of unbelief were of two descrip- 
tions : — 

First : In the impossibility, without a miracle, 
as he conceived, of determining passing events, 
at a distance, far beyond the reach of existing 
influences, or beyond the perception, when aided 
by instruments to the utmost, of the human 
faculties. And the clear impossibility, to his 
mind, also, of there being found in natural causes 
or agencies, any influence or medium by which 
events, contingent on the human will, yet un- 
accomplished, not actually begun, not even medi- 
tated by man, being certainly predetermined ; 
for such predeterminations must be clearly mir- 
aculous, and, consequently, within the peculiar 
province of omniscience ! 

Secondly, — he grounded his unbelief on the 
notorious fact of failure, by any clairvoyant, or 
all clairvoyants, of determining any thing, as far as 
he was aware, of ideally useful consideration. He 
might except, indeed, from this decided opinion 
of unbelief, the possibility, (as he might deem it) 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 49 

of the gaining some insight into the state of 
diseased subjects, placed en rapport with the 
clairvoyant ; or of prevision as to the effect of 
certain modes of relief (?) ; or of introvision, 
as to the condition of the viscera, &c, of 
the clairvoyant himself, — results, which, if fairly 
questionable, w r ere yet, in measure and part at 
least, within the limits of influence betwixt the 
parties, such as he held to be not inconsistent 
with possibility, on the theory he had assumed 
and stated. 

At the same time he must be free to state — 
that the only case of the assumption of such 
pow r ers in a clairvoyant, which he had ever met 
with, unfortunately was proved, as he fully be- 
lieved, to be one of imposture ; — the powers being 
assumed, as a profession, and the practice of the 
pretended powers employed, (under indeed a 
good deal of medical knowledge,) for the purpose 
of gain ! 

Another fact as to what clairvoyance ought to 
have been able to do, if real, but has never yet 
done, is one of some notoriety, viz., that whereas 
different individuals, disbelieving the assumptions 
of clairvoyants, or desirous of satisfactorily testing 
them, have enclosed bank notes in opaque enve- 
lopes, with the offer of any such note, as a reward 
to a successful attempt to read the inscription 
thereon, without penetrating or disturbing the 



D 



50 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

cover. But no such reward, for success, has ever 
been claimed ; nor, of course, ever been earnt. 

Finally, it might be added, in respect to this 
ground of unbelief, that purposes of immense 
utility have been submitted to clairvoyants, for 
determinations of various kinds, without ever, he 
believed, resulting in the obtaining of any infor- 
mation that could be essentially useful. If, by 
the way of illustration, clairvoyants can deter- 
mine the state of things and persons in distant 
regions, as, in multitudes of idle results has been 
asserted, why do they not give some useful in- 
formation. "Why," as a lady who was much 
interested in the fate of the absent Arctic expedi- 
tions, said to him when speaking of the pretensions 
referred to, — "Why, if they can tell what is 
passing at any distance, do they not tell where 
the discovery ships are, or what is their fate i" 

Whilst on this part of his subject— discussing 
the claims, as to his views of them, to belief of 
the higher or more questionable phenomena 
asserted of Zoistic Magnetism — he might just 
refer to another particular in which he might be 
able to yield a strong measure of refutation. He 
referred to the assumption of pow r ers in some 
Mesmerizers, of operating at great distances, and 
putting their patients to sleep, at their will, when 
the parties might be separated widely from each 
other. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 51 

He had two arguments to offer against the 
reality of such a power. 

The first was derived from the operation of 
the law of influence in respect of distance. If 
"any force, short of the Divine, could operate with 
an energy unaffected by distance, then the as- 
sumed power, might be a reality. But if, as his 
experiments had clearly determined, the power 
of the magnetizing agent actually diminished as 
the distance increased, then the preceptible opera- 
tion of that power must necessarily be limited. 

The second argument against the asserted 
powers, was derived from fact. Whilst he, Dr. 
S. had such highly creditable statements of facts 
in which patients had been put to sleep when the 
magnetizer was at a distance; he had always 
ascribed, as he doubted not the fact to be, these 
results to be due, not to any external agency, 
but to the power of the imagination and sympathy 
of the patient. 

Reference to a single case would be sufficient, 
if not to prove, at least to justify, his view of this 
phenomenon. A friend of his who was mesmeriz- 
ing curatively, told one of his patients, when he 
was about to leave home, that, on the following 
day, at a particular hour, he should exert his in- 
fluence in order to place her in her accustomed 
mesmeric condition. On his return from his 
journey, he found that the result he had assumed 
had actually taken place; the patient, at the 



52 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

proper time, duly went to sleep. But this, it so 
happened, was entirely independent of any effort 
on his part, or any act of his will, — for he him- 
self let the hour pass by, having altogether for- 
gotten what he had proposed being done ! 



In the descriptions of phenomena thus far given, 
there was little perhaps, as he, Dr. Scoresby, pre- 
sumed, — except as to the illustrations and indi- 
viduality of the facts, — that would be considered 
as very peculiar or novel. Those, indeed, as 
before he had intimated, who had made the 
subject of Zoistic Magnetism their study, and 
had had experience in its operations curatively, 
might deem the experience and practice hitherto 
declared as little more than elementary. 

He had given these descriptions and details, 
however, rather fully, because of their standing 
independent of what had hitherto been published 
by others, as the results of personal researches, 
tested, too, in every particular and phenomenon, 
by all the experience, in the investigation of other 
branches of science, which he could bring to bear 
upon them. In these respects, therefore, he 
trusted they would not be deemed unworthy of 
the consideration and attention of his audience ; 
nor unacceptable, as a contribution, however 
humble, to the body of facts, otherwise given to 
the public, iu respect to the subject which he 
sought to elucidate. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 53 

It was due, perhaps, to the several investiga- 
tors of the subject, which he, Dr. S., was dis- 
cussing, (as, indeed, to himself, also) to state, 
that, if he had not referred to what they had 
done and more elaborately examined into — or if 
he had refrained, to a considerable extent, from 
reading the published views and expositions of 
others, — it was not that he did not fully estimate 
their labours ; but that, he considered, it might 
do more for the cause of truth, — in respect to a 
subject that has been so much questioned, and, 
not unfrequently, held in contempt — to give his 
personal and independent researches, incomplete 
as, under such limited experience, they neces- 
sarily must be, than to attempt to embody with 
his own, the more elaborate researches and 
various views of Mesmerists in general. 

He now, however, came to a branch of his In- 
vestigations, w T hich (though in his unlearnedness, 
perhaps, he might be mistaken,) wxmld be found 
to comprise features, not only of peculiar interest, 
but, in certain particulars, of novelty and origin- 
ality. 

It had been his, Dr. Scoresby's, desire, when 
communicating his further researches, to have 
embodied the proceeds, so to speak, of a great 
number of interesting experiments, in one compact 
series, with the view of obtaining some general 
results. But whilst the results, within his limited 




54 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

experience, were assumed to spring from influences 
belonging essentially and generally to the human 
organization ; yet, it must be admitted, that they 
had not been verified to the extent that might be 
desired, by other agents, and other subjects, so as 
conclusively to claim for them the character of 
general laws in the human physiology. As, in- 
deed, there are peculiarities in every individual 
case, wherein the magnetizer or the magnetized 
is changed, — the results arrived at by any one 
experimenter, should have extensive confirmation, 
in order to their being received as general, by 
the requisite varieties in loth parties ; and as 
there are, in Zoistic Magnetism, different stages, 
characterized, to a certain extent, by distinctive 
phenomena, an additional difficulty is presented 
against results, generally, being set forth as 
essential characteristics of the constitution and 
physiology of man. 

In regard to what had sprung out of his own 
investigations — comprising phenomena at once 
satisfactorily yielded, and, for the most part, 
rigidly tested, — he, Dr. S., had every confidence 
in setting them forth as res facta. Whatever 
differences, therefore, might necessarily pertain 
to the endless varieties in the circumstances of 
such researches, — the results he had arrived at 
he must consider as, specifically, in many cases, 
and relatively, (as to the respective stages) in all 
cases, involving general phenomena and general 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 55 

laws. That is, as to results obtained through 
the medium of two of his best and most elabor- 
ately tried subjects, — he could have no doubt but 
that, whilst they were strictly conclusive in each 
individual case, they were relatively (in regard to 
the stage or degree of magnetization) indicative 
of general phenomena. 

Among the results which had sprung out of 
his own distinctive investigations, he had re- 
garded, as of peculiar interest and importance, 
those concerning a sort of polarity in Zoistic 
Magnetism, with sensibilities of an electric nature, 
apparently, of exquisite delicacy ; and concerning 
the peculiar action of electrics, and, their insulat- 
ing properties, on the magnetized subject. 

By the term polarity, (which he used only con- 
ventionally) he, the lecturer, meant, not what in 
relation to its stricter use it might seem to imply, 
but, a condition produced under the action of 
Zoistic Magnetism, in which specific phenomena, 
of the nature of these attendant on, or resulting 
in, polarity, in the case of ordinary magnetism, 
are developed, — such as attraction of the hands 
of the agent and subject, in different magnetic or 
electric conditions ; and^ repulsion of the hands or 
limbs, of either side from head to foot of the 
subject, when in a condition of tension or excite- 
ment of the same quality. Ordinarily, and most 
extensively, he had developed those characteristic 
influences and differences, by the mode of magne- 



56 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

tizing whilst the converse hands of the operator 
and subject were in contact ; in such case attrac- 
tion taking place betwixt the converse hands., &c. 
of the agent and subject, and repulsion betwixt 
the like hands, or similar sides of the body and 
limbs generally. 

But, it should be observed, that the magnetic 
state may exist in a high degree of sensibility 
and energy in the subject or patient, without the 
distinct manifestations of these phenomena; 
whilst the phenomena, characteristic of polarity, 
may, in certain cases be developed, whilst the 
energy or depth of the magnetic condition is by 
no means great. 

The stages in which the effects of polarity, (or 
different kinds of electricity ?) were principally 
developed, were those of the "sleep-waking" 
denominations generally; but the insulating 
powers of electrics, in his experiments, were not 
always found to be conclusive -and complete 
except in the lower sleep-waking state (that of 
No. 3, described at page 33) previous to the 
development of community of sensation. 



In proceeding now with his more advanced 
investigations — instead of attempting to cast 
them together, — it might be more interesting to 
his audience, as well as more advantageous 
to his subject, bis describing, separately, some 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 5/ 

of the more instructive cases on which he had 
recently had the privilege of experimenting. 

The first of the cases, whereby he should en- 
deavour to elucidate and advance his subject, was 
one in which the effects of different modes of 
magnetizing, — the nature of the attractive and 
repellent influences, — and the insulating power 
of electrics, — had their most elaborate and 
specific developments. The subject in this case, 

was Miss P , of W , a young lady of 

much talent and cultivation of mind, as well as 
of frank and generous disposition ; who, with 
full consent and approval of her parents, allowed 
him, Dr. S., every opportunity, mutually avail- 
able, during a period of about seven weeks, for 
making such experiments as, in the progress of 
his investigations, he found requisite or desirable. 
On these occasions, comprising thirteen seances, 
and about twenty experiments, the mother of 
the young lady, — a pious, intelligent, and interest- 
ing person — was always, except once, present, 
and she frequently suggested varieties in the ex- 
periments, or subjects of conversation, which 
served greatly to enhance the interest, as well 
as the completeness, of the researches. Indeed 
each of the parties whose sanction to the experi- 
ments was requisite, yielded that sanction, to 
the confiding willingness of Dr. S.'s young 
friend, in the most unreserved and generous 



58 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

manner, — all of them contemplating the object of 
the investigator as one of much importance, not 
only to science, but also., as it might prove, to the 
cause of suffering humanity. 

This young lady, it might be mentioned, had 
become so susceptible to the magnetical influence 
by his hands, that, under favourable circum- 
stances, he could generally close her eyes, with- 
out any previous manipulations, in from two to 
five minutes ; and could always awake her by a 
few upward passes, or, as his usual practice was, 
by breathing, or blowing softly, on her forehead 
and eyes. 

It was hardly necessary for him to say, where 
such perseverance was allowed him, by the affec- 
tionate and watchful mother, that no ill effects, 
or material personal inconvenience, ever resulted 
from any of his experiments. 

The facts in Zoistic Magnetism, which he, Dr. 
S., had derived fundamentally from experiments 

with Miss P , might, in some respects, be 

deemed as specific and individual, though they 
had been confirmed in many essential particulars 
by experiments with others. What he proposed 
to communicate in respect to these experiments 
would be mainly scientific ; — otherwise the nu- 
merous instances of intelligent, clever and pious, 
sometimes of curious or amusing, replies, which 
his questions, during the magnetic sleep, had 
elicited, would have afforded, had he had time 
for details, an abundance of interesting matter. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 59 

His plan, to take chiefly the scientific part, 
might be most clearly and compactly carried out, 
by giving a general summary of the results 
arrived at during the whole series of elaborate 
investigations. 

Classifying these results under certain specific 
characteristics, he should commence with, — 

I. The effect, in the depth of sleep and distinc- 
tive development of polarity (such as he had 
defined it) of various modes, or processes of 
magnetizing the subject. 

1. The arrangements and process which he, 
Dr. S., was led, from previous consideration of 
supposed principles in Zoistic Magnetism, to 
adopt, were found to yield the highest degree of 
sensibility to attractions and repulsions. And, 
as his method was usually the same, and had 
been found, in his experience generally, so ex- 
tremely effective, he might here, advantageously, 
describe it in detail : — 

The subject of experiment, being dressed in 
fabrics of cotton or woollen materials, was placed 
in an easy chair, comfortably supported, he, the 
experimenter, taking his seat on an ordinary 
chair, exactly in front, so that every part of the 
systems of the operator and subject should 
mutually be proximate, and opposite, to each 
other, in their converse sides ; that is, the right 
eye, shoulder, arm, hand, foot, &c. of the one 
party, being opposite to the left of the other. So 



60 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

arranged^ the natural polarities, as assumed, and 
the flow of the magnetic currents or electric 
influences, were supposed to be in the most 
favourable relations for their mutual development. 

When, however, the subject, as was frequently 
the case, was placed on a sofa, or, with a curative 
object, on a bed, he, the operator, whilst sitting 
parallel and face to face, usually crossed his 
knees, and covered, with a view to insulation, his 
proximate knee with silk (which otherwise, he 
supposed, might act unfavourably,) so as to yield 
the most consistent arrangements for the magnetic 
developments. And beyond the particulars speci- 
fied, he preferred (for reasons he could not now 
particularize) to have the sofa in the line of the 
magnetic meridian, with the head of the subject 
towards the north. But, it was in no case his 
practice, he might add, to take a position higher 
than his subject, so as to occasion a strain on the 
eyes by looking upward, — though so doing a de- 
gree of congestion might be produced, calculated 
to facilitate the magnetic arrangement, — but 
always to have the eyes of each party so directed 
as to take their natural and easy position. 

Thus situated, respectively, the magnetic con- 
dition was generally (first of all) developed, by 
merely taking the hands of the subject in his, the 
operator's, hands, right with left, and left with 
right ; and then steadily looking at each others 
Byes. After the eyes closed, and after a few 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 61 

minutes continuance of motionless and silent con- 
tact of the hands — he proceeded to make passes, 
usually with one hand at a time, whilst retaining 
the other hand, from the head over the face, or 
side of the head, downward to the extremity of 
the arm, or, as far as easily practicable, towards 
the feet — always confining the manipulations of 
either hand to its proper side. In cases where the 
eyes could not be closed by the mere contact of 
hands, &c, — passes were restorted to, partly free, 
(two or three inches above the dress,) and partly 
in contact with the dress of the subject, in aid of 
the quiescent influences. It was of course his 
practice, consistently with what has universally 
been deemed requisite, to give his mental ener- 
gies and will to the object in view. 

Every variation in the relative positions of 
operator and subject, or in modes of manipula- 
tion diverse from what had been suggested induc- 
tively from theory, he Dr. S., found, (so far as his 

experiments with Miss P went) diminished 

the susceptibility, or entirely obliterated the ex- 
istance, of distinctive attractive and repellent 
influences. 

2. Thus, when the operator occupied a place 
at one side of the subject, unless his knees were 
crossed so as to bring the right and left knees of 
the parties into proximity, the peculiar pheno- 
mena appeared to be less distinctive and the 
polarity less sensitive. 



62 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

3. When j again, the parties were relatively 
situated as in No. I, — the subject being placed 
recumbently on a sofa, — and the magnetizing was 
effected by the eyes, and free downward passes, 
without contact of the hands or otherwise,, — the 
eyes were not closed till about twice the usual 
time, and very slight polarities were developed. 

4. Situated respectively, as before described, 
the magnetizing, — to the extent of closing the 
eyes, which now occupied thrice the usual time, — 
was effected, by fixing the eyes, as ordinarily, 
but with the similar (or wrong) hands in con- 
tact ; — that is, each party holding with the right 
hand, the right hand of the other. After sleep 
had been induced, various passes, some free and 
some in contact with the dress, were made by one 
hand at a time from the head downward to the 
feet, but so only that each hand was confined to 
the side of its own denomination ; that is, the 
passes with the operator's right hand were made 
down the right side of the subject, and with the 
left correspondingly. 

In this case, the sleep was so much less com- 
plete than usual, that the voice of another, than 
that of the operator, was heard and replied to, 
and no polarities (at least nothing repellent) were 
perceptible. 

5. The same order of contact (the wrong hand 
being held) was tried in another experiment with 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 63 

Miss P ; but varying the passes, by making 

them upward, with the view of ascertaining, 
whether, under this change of direction, a change 
might not be given to the general magnetic 
currents in the subject. The result, however, as 
far as a single experiment could be relied on, was 
singularly summary. For hardly had two free 
passes been made, on one side only, upward, 
before the subject opened her eyes, and became 
wide awake ! 

6. An attempt was made to magnetize by mere 
contact of the proper hands, under the same 
arrangements as before, without the use of the 
eyes. But after a continuance of several minutes, 
— twice or thrice the ordinary time, — no effect 
whatever was perceptible. 

7. A further variation in the process was 
adopted, under the same general arrangements, 
by taking both hands of the subject in the right 
hand of the magnetizer, and the extremities of 
the shoes of both her feet in his left hand, whilst 
each looked the other steadily in the face. The 
eyes, as in other cases, were closed, but after a 
longer interval than usual ; but the sleep was so 
slight that a reply was instantly given to a call 
by the mother of the young lady, with the inti- 
mation — "I am not asleep." "Why, then," he, 
Dr. S., asked, "did you close your eyes ?" "Be- 
cause I could not help it," — was the answer. 

Here, again, no polarities were developed. 



64 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

II. Phenomena resulting from, or attendant on, 
the state of polarity. 

The results of this section, it should be noted, 
though originally derived from experiments with 

Miss P 3 had been extensively corroborated by 

other cases. But, it should be further observed, 
in respect to the effect of other circumstances, 
that the results might require considerable modi- 
fication (as will hereafter appear) if contact, by 
the experimentor, with conflicting magnetisms or 
polarities should have taken place ; or, still more 
so, if the magnetizer should have breathed on 
the hand, or other parts of the system, by means 
of which, or in which, some of the particular 
phenomena might have been developed. 

1 . The Polarity, (as for convenience of des- 
cription he had designated this condition) indi- 
cated by repellent and attractive influences of 
the hand, &c, of the magnetizer — was found, in 
the most complete cases, to extend from the 
crown of the head to the point of the foot ; but, 
otherwise, from the shoulder joint, downward ; 
and though the sensitiveness was increased by 
proper downward passes, yet the parts not 
reached by the passes, as the feet in many in- 
stances, were magnetized inductively, so as often 
to exhibit extreme sensitiveness. 

In the case of Miss P , now more specially 

referred to, the head was, as it were, an unity ; 
for no repellent influence was ever produced by 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 65 

either proximity or touch with the adverse hand 
of the magnetizer, upon the head, or face, or 
neck of the subject, — no matter how highly sus- 
ceptible, to an adverse influence, the other parts 
of the body and limbs might be. This difference, 
however, might not improbably be due to an in- 
ferior degree of magnetization ; or to less sensi- 
tiveness than that of other cases. 

2. There was an inseparable dependency for 

polarities, both in the instance of Miss P , 

and in the cases of several others, on the exis- 
tance of the sleep-waking-state ; for, at the very 
instant when the eyes were opened, the sensible 
polarities, with their attendant enjoyments and 
disagreeable sensations, vanished. Either hand 
of the operator might now be applied to the 
similar hand or foot of the subject ; and any of 
the parties in the room might now approach into 
contact, without the smallest feeling of discom- 
fort, or other particular sensation, being pro- 
duced. 

This fact was verified in a great number of 
instances, and, however familiar it might be to 
those who witnessed it, invariably occasioned a 
renewal of the expressions of surprize. 

Where, however, the subject was very suscep- 
tible and the state of coma deep, so as to render 
the awakening a work of time, — the cessation of 
sensitiveness to adverse polarities did not fully 
take place on the mere opening of the eyes. In- 

E 



66 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

dications of magnetization, would sometimes, in 
such cases, remain for a considerable interval after 
the return of vision and general consciousness. 

3. The attractive and repellent influences 
existing betwixt the respective polarities of the 
magnetizer and the magnetized, — could not be 
exercised, or stimulated, without a remarkable 
effect and contrast on the feelings of the latter : 
and the effect of a change from agreeable to ad- 
verse influences, or the converse, on the expres- 
sion of the countenance of the subject, was as 
sudden, as it was great and characteristic. 

4. Contact of the attracting hands — that is, of 
right with left, or left with right of the agent and 
subject ; or downward passes, whether free or in 
contact with the dress, with either hand of the 
operator, on the converse side or limb of the sub- 
ject, — was almost always found to be productive 
of pleasurable sensations, often of delightful, or 
felicitous, feelings. 

5. The mere proximity of the right hand of 
the operator, on the contrary, to any part of the 
right side of the body, from the shoulder to the 
foot, was always productive of repellent, and 
unpleasant effects, — sometimes as in a feeling of 
cold, but more frequently in the manner, ap- 
parently, of an electric shock. These effects 
were curiously and strikingly indicated by the 
singular changeableness of expression of the 
countenance, — the sweet and happy expression 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. &7 

becoming gradually grave, as the adverse hand 
approached within a few inches of her similar 
hand, or other parts of the same side of her per- 
son ; passing into a frown, or expression of dis- 
pleasure or pain, when it approached so as nearly 
to touch ; and occasioning, by contact with the 
dress, if not before, a sudden withdrawal of the 
hand or foot, against the agreeable sensibilities of 
which this violence had been done ! By the 
pointing of a finger, only, though at the distance 
of several inches, on the side of the repellent 
influence, these striking changes in the express- 
ion of feeling, would, in very sensitive cases, be 
produced. 

6. Passes made entirely clear of the dress, and 
on subjects in complete darkness by reason of 
their closely compressed eyelids, — were generally, 
whenever the sensibility was considerable, dis- 
tinctly felt ; and the position of the operator's 
hand, whether in motion or stationary, over any 
part of the body or limbs, would, on the question 
being asked, be commonly pointed out. 

Uptvard passes over the limbs, (if they did 
not reduce the magnetic condition of sleep) were 
productive of effects, which, in different subjects 
of his, occasioned their being described as " like 
rubbing upward a cat's back ;" as being * un- 
natural," or "painful," or "cold," or "disagree- 
able 3 because they awaken." 

7. Either hand of the subject being extended 



68 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

by the proper hand of the magnetizer, would 
generally remain stretched out ; and, by a few 
longitudinal passes, touching the extended arm 
with the points of his fingers, would become 
rigid, and often remain so for a long period to- 
gether. In this condition it was generally found, 
that, on the approach to each other, or contact 
of, the points of the fingers of the principals in 
the experiment, — attraction or repulsion resulted, 
according as the hands were of the converse 
denomination, or the same. 

The attraction was often sufficient to cause the 
rigid arm to revolve in the socket of the shoulder, 
just as, in the experiment he, Dr. S., had de- 
scribed, the needle suspended on an universal 
joint, followed the movements of the attracting 
magnet. The adverse influence, however, acted 
so far uncertainly as only sometimes to repel, but 
at others to relax the rigidity of the arm, or, 
occasionally, when the degree of sleep was slight, 
to awaken the subject. 

8. If, when the right hand of the subject was 
thus stretched rigidly out, the fingers of the 
operator's left hand were pointed towards the 
other, as in the same extended line, — the degree 
of tension would be generally increased ; whilst 
the pointing of the fingers of his right hand, in 
the same line, and approaching towards con- 
tact with those of the subject's right hand, would 
often cause the extended fingers to bend and 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 69 

collapse, and then, not unfrequently, the arm to 
fall down. In susceptible cases — except where 
the rigidity was great, — the resolution of the 
rigidity took place whilst the adverse hands were 
at several inches distance from each other. 

As to this result, respecting the peculiar in- 
fluence of the adverse polarities of the magne- 
tizer's hand on the rigid arm of the subject, — he, 
Dr. S., might exhibit an experiment, in ordinary 
magnetism, which yielded, he thought, an elegant 
illustration of the analogy existing between the 
two principles. 

For this he had provided himself with a pair 
of strong bar magnets, to the marked, or north, 
end of one of which, whilst resting flat on a 
stand, he attached, so as to project horizontally, 
a series of several short cylinders of iron. The 
little cylinders, it might be observed, were hollow, 
and were connected, loosely, by a thread passing 
through the centres of a bit of cork in each of 
them, so as to admit of flexure, without entire 
separation, among themselves. As thus held out 
horizontally by the force of the magnetic attrac- 
tion, they might be supposed to represent the 
condition of the rigid arm of the magnetized 
subject. Presenting, now, in the same horizontal 
line, the other bar magnet — the difference of 
effect, from its different poles, would be seen to 
be very striking. On presenting the south pole 
of the magnet in his hand, so as to approximate 



70 ZOiSTIC MAGNETISM, 

the series of cylinders, the rigidity was observe-* 
ably increased ; but on approaching the series 
with the north or adverse pole, (being of the 
same denomination as that of the sustaining 
magnet) the cylinders, it would be noticed, be- 
came successively detached (as the fingers of his 
subject began to collapse,) and ultimately the 
whole series, when the antagonist magnet had 
approached sufficiently near, fell down on the 
table. 

9. Downward passes, by the magnetizer's con- 
verse hand, along any side of the rigid arm and 
hand, generally caused a concave curvature of the 
fingers of the subject towards the side whereon the 
manipulations were made, — producing an upward 
curvature where the passes were made above the 
arm, and a lateral or downward curvature, when 
they were made on the sides, or below. 

10. Besides the special attractive and repellent 
influences, on parts of the body or limbs, a 
general attractive influence was found to be crea- 
ted by the person of the operator on that of the 
subject. This influence was commonly such as to 
produce a feeling, for the time and, under given 
circumstances, of great happiness, and of attach- 
ment, by consequence, during the seance, to the 
instrumental source of it. On the retiring of the 
magnetizer, to a little distance from his subject, 
a feeling of discomfort, sometimes of intense 
anxiety verging to tears, was found to take place ; 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. /I 

and such was the measure of attractive influence, 
under these circumstances, that the sleeping -sub- 
ject, as has been shewn, would sometimes follow 
the master-influence in his movements about the 
room. 

II. The law of distance, in respect to the 
intensity of these influences, was not determined \ 
but most conclusively it was shewn to have a 
ratio of the nature of that of other attracting or 
repelling powers, — the power diminishing clearly 
with the increase of the distance ; varying, not 
improbably, as in other cases, in the ratio of the 
squares of the distance, inversely. 

III. Of generally repellent influences, of persons 
and things, on the feelings and sensibilities of the 
subject in the Zoistic Magnetic condition. 

The results thus far described belonged to in- 
fluences, chiefly, it would have been observed, 
betwixt the magnetizer and his subject, whilst no 
other magnetisms of persons or things were pecu- 
liarly interfering : but he, the lecturer, had now 
to speak of influences resulting from the presence 
or movements of persons near, and from contact, 
by the magnetizer, either with them or other 
things. 

1. The general effect of proximity, of other 
persons than the magnetizer, was found to be 
unpleasant or painful to the subject, more 
especially when any movement took place. Or- 



72 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

dinarily, a person moving, when the subject was 
in a sleep-waking, and moderately sensitive, 
state, was felt at some yards distance ; but, if the 
state was highly sensitive, — as would more par- 
ticularly appear in his further accounts of experi- 
ments, — the magnetized subject was found to be 
sometimes disturbed by the slightest movements, 
such as those of the hands, or feet, or head of 
any of the persons present, though seated in the 
most distant part of the room ; and to be pain- 
fully disturbed, or excited, (it might possibly be 
injuriously) by the near approach, or rude con- 
tact, of another. 

2. The influence of persons, however, who 
might be seated near at the commencement of the 
experiment, or being subsequently brought up by 
the magnetizer, and placed en rapport with the 
subject, — was not found, whilst no change in 
contact, or movement in person, took place, to 
be disturbing to the subject under magnetic ac- 
tion, even when in a very sensitive state. 

3. Contact with things, such as the touch of 
another not being en rapport, or the touch of any 
article or thing in the room, by the operator in 
the experiment, would be felt, and that some- 
times painfully, in cases of delicate susceptibility, 
by the subject. And the experimenter being 
touched or pinched by another, might yield, in 
this case, as had been shewn, a reciprocating feel- 
ing in the subject ; and his eating or drinking, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 73 

however cautiously and concealedly, might result 
in community of taste. Nor was this mysterious 
transference of sensible impressions from the 
person of the magnetizer to that of the subject, 
confined to impressions so made whilst the par- 
ties were in contact ; but might take place, 
under circumstances favourable for the develop- 
ment of the phenomena, (as further records would 
shew) when the parties were separated by con- 
siderable intervening spaces in the room. 

But the particulars of the results of this order, 
as developed in a highly sensitive subject, would 
come in with most advantage, in their proper 
place, in his descriptions of experimental investi- 
gations yet to be given. 

4. The magnetized subject, he had generally 
found, (except in very low states of magnetization) 
was unregardful of questions asked by the per- 
sons in the room, and often insensible to any sound 
from their voices. But in other cases, whilst 
there was a general inability to discern what they 
might say, — a disturbing effect, as if from dis- 
agreeable impressions, was not unfrequently 
observed to take place. 

IV. Modifications of the phenomena, in polarity, 
and other peculiar effects, when the subject, Miss 

P , (with whom the results of this fourth 

section were specially obtained,) was dressed in 
silk or satin fabrics. 



74 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

1 . A dress of rich satin, in the case of Miss 
P 9 was found to render the process of mag- 
netization slower, and its development less ener- 
getic. The sleep was not so profound, so that 
the ear was generally sensible of other voices be- 
sides that of the magnetizer. 

2. The arm could not be made in like manner 
rigid, as with a dress of other materials, when a 
long-sleeved satin dress was worn. The fingers 
could be extended ; but the elbow and shoulder 
joints remained flexible. 

3. The satin dress was found to be completely 
insulating, as to external attractions and re- 
pulsions. Passes, without contact, over the satin, 
were imperceptible . The proximity or contact 
of adverse hands, or feet, was not regarded ; nor 
did contact over the dress, of the right hand of 
the operator with the right shoulder, arm, or 
knee, produce any revulsion of existing happy 
feeling, or any change in the countenance, or any 
apparent consciousness of particular sensation. 

4. When the feet of the subject were drawn 
up beneath the dress, as instinctively they were 
when one of the persons in the room approached 

the foot of the sofa, she, Miss P , no longer 

regarded the increased proximity. Her mother 
could now touch the sofa, and even place her 
hand over the satin-covered feet, without un- 
pleasant effects being particularly marked. In 
fact, all within the satin was insulated, — encased 



20ISTIC MAGNETISM. ~75 

against external influences, like the tortoise in its 
shell ! 

5. Insulated, however, as the satin-covered 
parts of the body were from external influences, 
they were not defended against the general 
magnetic or electro-magnetic arrangement ; but 
were all inductively magnetized. Hence, it was 
found, that any part, which, whilst covered, was 
defended from adverse polarities, became instantly 
susceptible if the insulating material were re- 
moved. But the magnetic condition was not 
found to be so intense in the general system, as 
where the whole person was enrobed in non-elec- 
trics . It resembled the magnetizing of a soft steel 
bar by contact, at the extremities only, with the 
opposite poles of two magnets ; the magnetism 
was weaker throughout, though generally diffused. 

6. By means of silk fabrics, or other electrics, 
any portion of the body, when magnetized under 
the most favourable circumstances of dress and 
position, could be instantly protected from adverse 
magnetisms. Thus, with a silk handkerchief 
interposed, he, Dr. S., could touch, without any 
apparent discomfort to the subject, her right hand 
with his right, or her left with his left. Such, 
also, were the insulating effects of oiled silk ; 
window glass ; paper covered with sealing-wax 
varnish ; india-rubber, &c. 

7. The susceptibility of the unprotected parts 
was, at the same time, as great as ever. If the 



76 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

fingers of the operator's incongenial or repellent 
hand, were bent over the edge of the plate of 
glass, or extended at all beyond the margin of 
this or any other insulating substance, — instantly 
the brow of the subject was seen to contract as 
indicative of a feeling of discomfort. When he, 
Dr. S., slid his hand slowly down the satin sleeve 
over the arm of Miss P. ; the instant that the 
points of his fingers advanced beyond the pro- 
tecting dress, the repulsion and disturbance be- 
came manifest. 

8. Insulation from the earth, in both Magnet- 
izer and subject — so far as the interposition of 
thick silk and satin fabrics could avail — did not 
in any way, that he, Dr. S., could perceive, di- 
minish or modify the effects. Under this arrange- 
ment, — no insulting material covering the subject, 
or being interposed betwixt the subject, and the 
magnetizer — her eyes were closed in about three 
minutes, and the sensitiveness, to repellent in- 
fluences, was found to be as great as under the 
most favourable circumstances. Hence, it was 
inferred that the influence productive of the phe- 
nomena had not, as in frictional electricity, de- 
pendence on the earth ; but must, like magnetism 
or voltaic electricity, have its sources inherently, 
or, in the animal organization. 

9. No disturbance was produced, — either in 
the state of insulation of the last experiment, or 
under any other arrangements, — by juxta-position 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 77 

or contact with the magnetized subject, on the 
needle of the compass, nor on the needle of a 
delicate galvanometer, nor on the gold leaf of an 
electrometer. With these several instruments the 
circuit was variously made, and the modes of 
contact were variously tried, — especially in con- 
nection with the points of the fingers when the 
arms were made rigid, — but no influence what- 
ever could be detected. In the use of the gal- 
vanometer, he might mention, the connection 
was made by means of insulated copper wires, 
and the circuit was completed in several different 
ways. 

10. Bar-magnets were also tried, as well as 
sticks of excited sealing-wax, — their extremities 
being presented to, or put in contact with, the 
points of the fingers of the extended and rigid arm, 
— but no sensible influence, as to attraction or re- 
pulsion, was, in the case of Miss P , observed. 

These results, however, are not noted as proofs 
that no influence might be elicited under the 
action of more powerful magnets, or more 
strongly excited electrics, or under more felici- 
tous arrangements ; but only as indicating what 
occurred in the trials, he, Dr. S., had himself an 
opportunity of making. 



The next case to which he, Dr. S., should refer, 
as yielding phenomena which, in his then expe- 



78 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

rience, were novel to him, was one already 
alluded to in his first lecture. 

Amelia O , a young woman of about nine- 
teen years of age, amiable in disposition, slight 
and rather delicate looking in person, had become, 
incidentally, the subject of experiment. She was 
from the country, and knew nothing, except by 
brief previous explanation, of what she might 
probably experience. In a few minutes she was 
under powerful magnetic influence ; and, though 
her eyes did not remain permanently closed, it 
was evident, from the failure of repeated attempts 
to make her wink, that she saw nothing. Of 
external impressions, whether of sight or feeling, 
she seemed to be entirely insensible. Any one 
in the room, just as well as the magnetizer, could 
touch her without producing any apparent dis- 
comfort, — except with a cold hand. Pinching, 
or other means of making her feel, which could 
be tried without risk of subsequent unpleasant- 
ness, were utterly disregarded. In a few minutes 
after the commencement of the process, her pre- 
vious grave timidity passed off, and was succeeded 
by a condition, when left undisturbed, of undevi- 
ating enjoyment. Sometimes she seemed quite 
felicitous. She laughed, and talked or sang, 
almost incessantly. In talking she seemed to 
have the actual and familiar scenes before her, 
which she described, or referred to, with a 
characteristic simplicity and innocency. Her 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. /9 

singing consisted always of hymns, — the senti- 
ment of which she seemed to feel. 

The phenomenon, in this case, which excited 
most special interest with all the persons present, 
was that of community of taste betwixt the sub- 
ject and the agent in the experiment. He tasted 
wine, (a liquid w T hich she greatly disliked) and her 
pleasant happy face was instantly disturbed. He 
took water, and she became composed. He ate 
biscuit, (a small thin and crisp kind) and she, 
smiling, as enjoying it, made movements of the 
lips and mouth as if eating. The effects were 
similar w r hen six persons were interposed betwixt 
the parties ; and, in every variation of the trial 
— except, when he, Dr. S., went out of the room, 
and beyond a thick wall — the effects were simi- 
lar. When the experimenter was out of contact 
in the middle of the room, with his back turned 
to the subject ; when he stood on an ottoman 
covered, with a view T to insulation, with a silk 
handkerchief ; and even when he retired into a 
further division of the drawing room, and ate 
and drank, and drank and ate, with the separat- 
ing partition, to which folding doors were attach- 
ed, interposed betwixt them, — she gave exactly 
the same tokens (except in degree) of dislike to 
wine, and relish of the biscuit he tasted, as she 
had done when they were in immediate contact. 
A thin sweet biscuit which he, Dr. S., also tasted, 
she relished exceedingly, and remarked, that 'the 



80 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

sweet biscuits came from Mrs. W s, she 

knew, because she had taken them in !' Her ob- 
servations, superadded, on the respective accom- 
plishments of the cooks of the two households, 
were at once characteristic and amusing. 

The ordinary means, by gentle processes, failed 
in waking her up : but, being somewhat relieved 
from her previous unwillingness to move, she was 
taken up stairs, to rest, at his, Dr. S's., request, 
where she washed her hands, still in a state of 
somnambulism, remarking that the water (of the 
natural temperature) was warm. She slept it off 
in a few hours, and rose of her own accord, at the 
usual time, quite well. 

A third case, the last he, Dr. S., should, in the 
series of mere experimental investigations, adduce, 
— was one which, to him, had yielded very singu- 
lar information and delight. It was that of Miss 

H , to which, in his first lecture (pp. 29-31,) 

he had referred, with respect only, however, of 
what he might designate an introductory seance ; 
but which had become, in subsequent experi- 
ments during three more long seances, increas- 
ingly important, by reason of new investigations 
under improved experience, as well as intensely 
interesting in new or unexpected effects, and 
in scientifically consistent developments. For, 
most advantageously, as to the eliciting of such 
results, it happened, that whilst this lady pos- 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 81 

sessed, naturally, a high degree of sensibility in 
temperament, and poetry of character, — her gene- 
ral intelligence and mental cultivation, qualified 
her for yielding developments of various phe- 
nomena, under singularly lively and distinctive 
characteristics. 

The experiments with Miss H , were made 

at the residence of Capt. P , and, at the 

seances now to be described, in the drawing- 
room. This room, it should be noted, was so 
commodious and spacious that, when the subject 
of experiment was on a sofa near one of the win- 
dows, the company present (which varied from 
half-a-dozen to about fifteen persons) could be 
dispersed at considerable distances, — the princi- 
pal part being generally seated on, or in a line 
with, a sofa, opposite to the window, so as to 
admit of a clear interval in the middle of the 
room, of at least five yards. 

Miss H , it was found, was so susceptible 

of the magnetic influence that, whilst recumbent 
on the sofa, her eyes could be permanently and 
completely closed, with very small effort on the 
part of Dr. S., and without a single pass being 
made, in the course of from one to three minutes. 
Sensible effects, indeed, were produced by the 
quiet and simple process he, Dr. S., had usually 
adopted, within half-a-dozen seconds of time 
after the contact of each other's hands. The 
previous smile changed rapidly, but by gradual 



82 ZOTSTIC MAGNETISM. 

progress, into a grave expression of countenance 
— a few slight spasmodic startings occurred — the 
eyelids, at brief intervals, were transiently shut 
— the head bowed or fell aside, followed by a 
brief awakening, as of one just falling asleep — 
and then the eyes became finally closed. Shortly 
afterwards, sometimes whilst a few passes were 
being made, and sometimes before, a sweet and 
peculiar smile of child-like expression, and indi- 
cative of great happiness, would' beam upon the 
countenance, when, conversation and experiments 
could forthwith be carried on, without particular 
effort of will or intention on his, Dr. S's., part, or 
risk of awakening on the part of his subject. 

The phenomena elicited in these experiments 
were, as to their general characteristics, similar 
to w T hat had been observed in some of the cases 
which he, Dr. S., had already described, — par- 
ticularly in those of the Misses L , W , 

P , and G . But these with Miss H 



were characterized by sensitiveness, by diversity 
of developments, by advance into the class of 
the higher and more mysterious effects, — in 
degree and interest far exceeding what had been 
exhibited in any previous individual case within 
his experience. 

Not, however, to go over the ground again 
which he had hitherto been traversing, where the 
effects elicited were but ordinary in their charac- 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 83 

ter, he should confine himself, mainly, to the 
description of developments presenting, to his 
mind, something new, or more characteristically 
scientific. And as it might be convenient, for the 
sake of order and compactness, that the develop- 
ments of the various seances, obtained through 
the medium of this admirable subject, should be 
classified and cast together, — he should now 
proceed, first of all^ to describe, — 

1 . The exceeding susceptibility of the subject to 
movements of persons in the room, and within or 
near the house. 

In the first and second seances with Miss H , 

— various experiments had been made, as well as 
numerous incidental effects observed, in respect 
to movements of persons present at the time. Her 
sensibility was such that the smallest change of 
position, or even movement of the head or hand, 
of any of the company, was productive of un- 
pleasant feelings, — as indicated by the contraction 
of the brow and the altered expression of the 
mouth,— as well as, not unfrequently, by a sort of 
spasmodic action on the body or limbs. The 
reality and extent of this sensibility had been 
repeatedly tested by movements designedly made, 
on his, Dr. S's., suggestion. The results were 
most decisive, as to an extraordinary perception 

in Miss H , of every movement, though the 

parties might be separated by the breadth of the 
room. 



84 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

On reconsidering these effects, it had occurred 
to him, Dr. S., that it might be objected — firmly 
as the eyes were closed — that she had possibly 
heard and understood, the intimations given by 
the experimenter, and so he, and others, might 
have been deceived. To meet this imagined 
objection, he had provided for the third seance, a 
large screen — it was a clothes-frame, of about 
ten feet wide and seven high, covered completely 
with folds of linen — which was placed betwixt 
the parties in the room, and the subject under 
experiment. The screen was about nine feet 

from the sofa on which Miss H w T as lying, 

and about six feet from another sofa at the back 
of the room, on which four ladies were seated. 
To avoid the use of words capable of guiding the 
subject, — could she, by any intuitive operation of 
mind or imagination, have exhibited the effects 
she might know to be expected, — he, Dr. S., had 
prepared a series of written directions for the 
guidance of his assisting friends, in which cer- 
tain movements, designed to be made, were indi- 
cated by numbers instead of words. His numeri- 
cal signals were to the following effect : — 

1. Let one of the party rise cautiously and 
stand up, without other movement. 

2. Stretch out the right hand towards the sofa 
opposite. 

3. Stretch out the left hand. 

4. Raise either hand above the head. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 85 

5. Sit down. 

Thus prepared, and whilst Miss H was 

indicating great contentedness and happiness 
under contact of the proper hands, he, Dr. S., 
called softly, "number one," — which was carried 
into effect in absolute silence ; and instantly the 
brow contracted, and there was manifest appear- 
ance of disturbance. "Number two" being called 
out, the disturbance was increased. "Number 
three" produced a like effect. "Number four" 
occasioned still greater disturbance. After "num- 
ber five" had been called, but few moments 
elapsed before all was repose and happiness in 
the expression of countenance of Miss H — — . 

The experiment was repeated several times at 
the third seance, and verified at the fourth, by 
different individuals, in succession, behind the 
screen. Sometimes it was varied by calling first 
of all — "number two," — and thus going through 
the series of movements of the hands whilst 
seated. The effects were similar, though not so 
great. A still less effect, it was thought, in the 
degree of disturbance occurred, when a lady with 
a muslin dress obeyed the call for the various 
movements, than with one wearing a silk dress. 
The screen was subsequently overlaid, (above the 
previous covering of linen), with a quantity of 
shawls, cloaks, &c, made of fabrics of silk and 
satin, with a view of ascertaining, whether these 
might not intercept some of the radiant influence. 



86 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

On two or three series of experiments, after the 
manner of the former, being made, the results 
seemed to justify the anticipation ; — the effects, 
generally, though similar in nature to the former, 
seemed to be considerably less disturbing. 

But the disturbing influence of personal move- 
ments was not limited to intervals of fourteen or 
fifteen feet. Persons moving in the hall were 

felt by Miss H ; men working on the lawn 

some forty yards distance produced disturbance ; 
and carts, passing in a lane when about a hundred 
yards off, were observed to be exceedingly dis- 
turbing. Some of these effects, however, might 
possibly be the result of sound, or vibratory 
action, on the subject of experiment, the sensi- 
bility of whose faculties appeared to be singularly 
great. 

2. The adverse and repellent electricities (?) of 
all extraneous substances, as to their action on the 
magnetized subject. 

In using, as if interchangeable, the terms 
electricity and magnetism, whilst describing his 

experiments with Miss H , he, Dr. S., would 

guard himself against the supposition of his doing 
so either in looseness of expression, or as if con- 
sidering these influences identical. His reason 
for not at once substituting electricity for magne- 
tism in his general descriptions would hereafter 
appear ; but, meanwhile, he should feel himself 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 87 

free to adopt either term, for the occasion, just 
as the one or the other seemed the best adapted 
to the apparant character of the phenomena. 

Any substance, whatever, taken up from an 
adjoining table, or from the floor, or from the 

hand of another, produced, in Miss H , an 

effect like that of an electric shock, whenever 
such substance was brought into contact with the 
hands, or feet, or indeed any part of the body, or 
on either side of the body ; — the shock being 
almost as powerfully felt through the dress, as 
on the uncovered hands. 

From this effect it was inferred, that all sub- 
stances had, naturally, a quality of electricity, or 
of some other subtle influence, adverse to that 
of the magnetized subject. 

And whilst, as he had before shewn, repellent 
effects w T ere always produced by a touch of the 
hand, or knee, or other parts of the body of the 
experimenter, on any part of the body or limbs 
of the subject of the same side ; it also was found 
that if either hand of the experimenter, had had 
but momentary contact with any extraneous per- 
son or substance, having its natural polarity, then 
it became repellent and unpleasant to the subject, 
no matter on what side, or part of the body, it 
might be placed. It might be further stated, 
that such was the inductive influence of these 
adverse electricities, that, after either hand 
of the operator had touched, (or, he believed 



SB ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

had been placed very near to) his own person oil 
the converse side, — its action was found to have 
become repellent to the subject on the side even 
where, in its undisturbed polarity, it had been 
wont to have a soothing or a pleasurable in- 
fluence. 

3. The neutralizing of the adverse or repellent 
electricities, of bodies or substances extraneous to 
the magnetized subject, by the breathing thereon by 
the magnetizer. 

Until he, Dr. S., discovered this simple method 
of neutralizing extraneous electricities, or re- 
ducing them to the condition of his own polarities, 
— his experiments on the effects of contact or 
proximity of extraneous substances with his very 
susceptible subject, had been surrounded with, ap- 
parently, inextricable embarrassments. Though, 
indeed, he might reduce his own repellent local 
polarities, into some measure of conformity with 
those of his subject, by persevering in contact, or 
making passes on the parts having adverse con- 
ditions of magnetism (or electricity) — and, by 
similar treatment of extraneous substances, might 
bring them into like congeniality ; yet these pro- 
cesses were often attended with such great dis- 
comfort or pain to his kindly confiding friend, 
and sometimes required so much time for the 
required purpose being effected, that he was 
vastly relieved and aided when he found, — that 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 



89 



what had previously been a work of much diffi- 
culty, might now, by the mere act of breathing, 
be accomplished in a moment ! 

Thus whilst an instantaneous touch of any 
part of the left side of his sensitive subject, with 
a finger of his left hand, had invariably occa- 
sioned a start, as if by an electric shock, with a 
change of countenance from an expression, per- 
haps, of extreme happiness to that of displeasure 
or distress, — the same act being done after 
merely breathing on the points of his fingers, was 
attended either by an agreeable, or indifferent, 
result. 

In like manner contact with extraneous sub- 
stances, which ordinarily produced a convulsive 
start, would often be sustained after breathing 
on the erratic hand, by which they were taken 
up, without the smallest indication of either pain 
or dislike. 

But the phenomena elicited, under the alter- 
nate action of the natural or adverse polarities, 
and of the neutralized condition, were so truly 
astonishing and beautiful as to deserve more 
particular description. 

When, with a stick of red sealing-wax, taken 
from off an adjoining table, he touched the hand, 

or arm, knee or foot of Miss H , on either 

side, she started, as if convulsively ; and when he 
repeated contact after contact, on the same side 
or part, several repetitions of the shock, though 
with a gradual diminution of intensity, took place. 



90 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

After renewing the adverse contact of the sealing- 
wax with the table, or with the hands of one of 
the persons in the room, he again touched the 

hand of Miss H , with it, and, as before, there 

was a convulsive start ; he then breathed on the 
wax and again touched her, when, instead of a 
shock and frown in the face, there was a quiet 
contented smile. This experiment, varying, in 
all conceivable ways, the manner of contact with 
adverse substances, he repeated, during three 
seances, at least a hundred times. And so rapid 
and certain were the changes — when, for instance, 
he touched Miss H 's hand with the sealing- 
wax, alternately after contact with the sleeve of 
his coat, and after breathing upon it, — that they ap- 
peared absolutely marvellous : for there was now 
a shock and frown, then a smile of satisfaction ; 
now a shock, then a smile, as rapid, in their 
changes, as the several manipulations could be 
effected, and as specific and characteristic in the 
effects, as the results of any process in electricity 
or magnetism whatever ! 

So, also, were the results, when contact with 
his hand, having adverse polarity, was made, before 
and after breathing on it. Before the breathing, 
there was a start with a frown ; after the breath- 
ing, no start, but a complacent smile. In like 
manner, when his proper hand was applied to his 
subject, after contact with some extraneous sub- 
stance, or with the wrong side of his body ; the 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 91 

relative effects, before and after breathing thereon, 
were similar : — for when the acts of contact and 
breathing were made at intervals of scarcely two 
seconds of time, and, alternated by numerous 
repetitions, the expected phenomena always took 
place with equal celerity and uniformity. 

He must not omit, however, here to remark, 
that the neutralizing effect of breathing on his 
own hand was distinctly local. It made no 
change on the general polarities of the rest of his 
system. For, after the hand had been so neu- 
tralized, the shoulder, elbow, knee, &c. of the 
same side, were found still to possess their dis- 
tinctive polarities. 

Similar experiments to those he had just des- 
cribed, with a variety of substances, possessing 
very different qualities in respect of ordinary 
electricity, were also tried, and with correspond- 
ing results. Glass, crystals, metals, silk, paper, 
&c, were subjected to the same kind of process. 
In some of them, indeed, especially in the case 
of electrics generally, — it was needful, he ima- 
gined, to handle the substance and breathe upon 
it longer than with a non-electric, before the 
condition of agreeable neutrality seemed to be 
produced. But this condition, after a little 
perseverance, was invariably found to be pro- 
duced. 

The effects of breathing, it should be observed, 
were not peculiar, as by experiment, he had found, 



92 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

to the human or animal electricity. For on ex- 
citing a stick of sealing-wax, or a cylinder of 
glass, under atmospheric circumstances highly 
favourable to the electrical development, he found 
he could neutralize its action on a delicate gold- 
leaf electrometer, in a few moments, by this very 
process. No matter what was the cause,— 
whether the breath, the dampness, or the force 
of air, — the result was similar to what had been 
realized in the experiments he had described. 

In the experiments with this young lady, how- 
ever, it was important to notice, — that she her- 
self was t he actual electrometer, — an electrometer 
of exquisite sensibility and delicacy. For whilst 
no electricities or magnetisms in her, could be 
made to shew sensible action on his delicate 
galvanometer, electrometer, or compass needle ; 
she, the subject, was sensible of electrical, or other 
changes, which, probably, could not be detected 
by any instrument ever yet fabricated or devised 
by man ! 

4. The insulating poiver of electrics. 

This important fact in natural science, was 

beautifully exhibited in the case of Miss H . It 

was not, however, until after he, Dr. S., had dis- 
covered the neutralizing effect of breathing, so as to 
be able to disembarrass such materials of existing 
electricities, that he was able at all to connect 
these effects with the results attained from ex- 
periments with Miss P . 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 93 

Miss H , whilst under the magnetic in- 
fluence, being an electrometer, as he had stated, 
of exquisite sensibility, caused all insulating sub- 
stances, on the early trials, apparently to fail. 
But, under the neutralizing process referred to, 
he ultimately found them abundantly and charac- 
teristically effective. 

Thus having breathed over a sheet of paper 
covered with red sealing-wax varnish, which, 
previously, had occasioned something like a shock, 
— he found that when it was laid on his right 
knee, the hand of the same side of Miss H. would 
rest quietly thereon, being defended by its perfect 
insulation from the discordant influences. But 
when the intervening paper was withdrawn, 
instantly the face would be darkened by a frown 
and the hand snatched away. 

The effect of silk, compared with the develop- 
ments in the case of Miss P , was, on his 

early trials, most perplexing. He had placed a 
silk handkerchief, with a view to insulation, over 
his right knee which was contiguous to the right 
side of his subject ; but when he attempted to 
place her right hand upon it, the silk was found 
to be repellent like the knee itself; and when he 
threw the handkerchief, as he took it from the 
knee, upon any part of the right side of Miss 

H , it occasioned a shuddering repellency, as 

of an adverse electricity. But having breathed 
on and through the handkerchief, it no longer pro- 



94 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

duced discomposure in the subject, no matter 
on what part of her person it might be thrown. 

With the silk handkerchief thus neutralized by 
breathing through it, the reality of its protecting 
power was beautifully shewn. Being so pre- 
pared, and laid over the experimenter's right 
knee, the right hand of the subject, naturally ad- 
verse to such a contact, was placed upon it, 
where it reposed in perfect quiescence. Whilst 
so situated, he, Dr. S., slowly and cautiously 
drew away the handkerchief from betwixt the 
reposing hand and the sustaining knee : when, 
at the very instant that the insulation was violated, 

the arm of Miss H , bending at the elbow 

joint, flew up with a sudden, and rather violent, 
blow against her shoulder ! At different seances, 
and on several occasions, this curious and beauti- 
ful experiment was repeated. Sometimes he 
engaged the attention of his subject by conversa- 
tion, whilst the withdrawal of the silk fabric was 
stealthily going on ; but the result was utterly 
independent of either the attention or will of his 
subject. The bending of the arm was always the 
same and always as sudden. It reminded him, 
though a converse motion, of the release of a 
spring bayonet attached to a blunderbuss which 
he happened to possess, in which the bayonet 
flew out, with startling velocity, the instant the 
retaining bolt or trigger was withdrawn. 

Another striking instance of insulation, which 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 95 

was shewn on two different occasions, deserves 
yet to be described, — consisting of the insulation, 
in silk, of the person of one of the company. 

The Honorable Mrs. W , being dressed in 

silk, and with a gown so ample as to touch the 
floor all round when she was standing at rest, — 
covered her head and arms, at Dr. S's. suggestion, 
with a small silk mantle, which was lying loose 
at her hand, and then, being beckoned forward, 
walked up to within about a yard of the magne- 
tized subject. Under other circumstances the 
effect would have been almost convulsive ; but 

now the approach of Mrs. W , so thoroughly 

enveloped in silk, was hardly noticed. But when 
a hand was cautiously thrust out from beneath ; 
or when the mantle was just opened in front so 
as to expose only a very small portion of the face, 
and but one eye, — there was instantly a start and 

a frown in Miss H , (though her face was not 

in that direction) with a disturbance so increas- 
ingly distressing that Mrs. W. had either to renew 
her insulation, or retreat to the farther side of 
the room. 

By these experiments, he, Dr. S., conceived it 
to be abundantly shewn, that the electric con- 
dition of the sensitive magnetized subject, and 
the insulating power of electrics, — as originally 

developed in Miss P , — were not the effect 

of any idiosyncracy, in her case, but phenomena* 
of a general character in Zoistic Magnetism. 



96 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

5. The conversion of painful inflictions into 
pleasurable sensations. 

This result was realized oil, perhaps, a hundred 
trials, made, at intervals, during the four long 
seances with Miss H— — . As any severities in- 
flicted during the magnetic insensibility, would 
be felt, as injuries, on the awakening of the sub- 
ject, he, Dr. $., could, of course, make trial of 
no pain-giving action beyond pinching, or prick- 
ing slightly with a pin, — and to the extent only, 
in either mode, to which persons in sport might 
try the sensibilities of one another. 

But the effect of these, ordinarily, pain-giving 
processes, yielded to his magnetized friend, under 
the action of his proper hand, only pleasurable 
sensations. On pinching the top of her left foot, 
with the finger and thumb of his right hand, 
there was always an indication of enjoyment, and 
so, that the harder he pinched the more expres- 
sive and obvious were the signs of pleasure. 
Sometimes she would laugh out, as if in excess of 
enjoyment, and, being asked, why she laughed, 
she would reply — "because it is so pleasant." 
Very often as he pinched her, in order to shew 
to others the curious effect, she would say — " I 
like that": "goon": " it is delightful" : just as 
in the ordinary state of the human system the 
like process would give pain to the subject ; so 
in the magnetic state, and under the proper 
polarities, there were regularly produced the con- 
trary feelings ! 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 97 

The effect of pricking with a pin was equally 
curious. For very many trials, indeed, he had 
been greatly embarrassed on finding a pin handed 
to him, or thrown to him, or taken from a table, 
always producing a sudden start and frown. And 
though he neutralized the electricity of the hand 
with which he took up the pin, he found the effect 
the same. Or w r hen, having taken up the pin 
and dropped it on the person of the subject over 
the centre of the chest, he had breathed on his 
hand before he took it up, — he still found a shock 
and pain produced. He found it difficult to be- 
lieve, in respect to these results, that the small sub- 
stance of the pin could in itself retain a quantity 
of adverse influence sufficient to produce the 
effects he witnessed. Ultimately, he inferred, 
that part of the effect might probably be due to 
the electricity induced on his hand in taking up 
the pin, even when he had had no contact with, 
but only proximity to, an adverse polarity ; but 
still some repellent quality, after all allowances 
for such influence, seemed to abide in the metal 
of the pin. 

Having, however, effectually neutralized the 
electricity of the pin, and of his own right hand 
whilst holding it, he found the action of its point, 
on the hands or feet of Miss H- , just as plea- 
sant as the act of pinching ! The more he 
pricked, the more she smiled approvingly. If he 
questioned her, whether she would not be dis- 



98 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

pleased on awakening, to find herself pinched or 
pricked ? — she always said " No, I shall not." 
"Hike it" : "do it again" : "go on." 

That pain, in the waking state, would have 
resulted from these experiments, he, Dr. S., had 
been abundantly satisfied by the fact, that the 
foot of his young friend was quite sore the day 
after the third seance ; and the hand, w T hich, in the 
fourth seance, he had more particularly practiced 
on with the pin, was found covered with red spots 
in the places where he had inadvertently pressed 
the pin within the surface of the skin. 

The conclusion w r hich would, he conceived, be 
inevitably arrived at from these results, must be 
confirmatory of the statements so frequently put 
forth, — as to the adaptation of the condition of 
mesmerized patients for the undergoing of opera- 
tions without either anxiety or pain. From his 
own experiments, — now imperfectly described, — 
he, Dr. S., felt fully convinced, that, had the 
operator, in an amputation, had his patient in the 
condition of Miss H., whilst he was relatively in 
that of the magnetizer, not only could an opera- 
tion have been performed without pain, but, 
possibly, under an experience of pleasurable sen- 
sations ! 

6. The attachment of the hands, feet, fyc, of the 
magnetized subject, immoveable/, as to any power in 
herself, to the sofa, or to the floor of the room. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 99 

Of this species of phenomena, he, the lecturer, 
had hitherto been himself incredulous. He had 
been disposed to ascribe to deception on the part 
of the operator, or intention on the part of the 
subject, the phenomena of this kind which he had 
witnessed in some public exhibitions ; and where 
he had heard of specific cases, altogether beyond 
suspicion, because of the known integrity of the 
parties, he had still doubted, in respect, to the ex- 
tent of th.eiiAu.ence asserted, whether the observers 
might not have been deceived ? All, therefore, 
which he could justly claim from those who, like 
himself, had been incredulous, was to give 
credit to him and the lady who kindly submitted 
to be his subject of experiment, for their personal 
integrity, — and then, duly considering the record 
he had to give of what he had himself, instru- 
mently, accomplished, judge according to fair and 
just judgment. 

Finding, on his second seance with Miss H , 

such a wonderful power and effect, magnetically 
or electrically, when he breathed on any article 
in a condition adverse to the polarities of his sub- 
ject, — it occurred to him to try, whether, by any 
such process, as that referred to, he could attach 
her hand to the back of the sofa ? The idea of 
this experiment, as well as the species of attach- 
ment he proposed to try, was stimulated in some 
degree by a matter of convenience, viz : — the secur- 
ing his subject, on the sofa, (she having previously 



100 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

followed him when he retreated from her side) 
whilst he should try certain experiments, respect- 
ing community of taste, when out of contact. He 
made the contemplated trial, breathing on the 
back of the sofa and then placing the flat of Miss 

H 's left hand on the spot, when, to his no 

small surprise, he found she could not remove it. 
For, when he now retired into the middle of the 

room, though Miss H nearly threw herself 

off the sofa in the effort to follow, her hand 
remained steadily affixed. He next attached, by 
the like process, the other hand to the sofa pillow, 
and both the feet to the foot of the sofa. All were 
found to be attached, as to any power in herself, 
immoveably. And so rigidly were the feet 
retained that, though he, Dr. S., exerted consider- 
able force in attempting to raise them, he was 
unable, whilst in a sitting posture at least, to 
effect his object. 

Subsequently, when Miss H had followed 

him on the floor, he tried another experiment of 
which he had often heard, and as constantly dis- 
believed ; — the making of a line, or circle, on 
the floor with his hand, with the view of arresting 
the movements of his subject within that invisible 
cordon. The trial, to his great surprize, suc- 
ceeded; for his subject, who had aforetime followed 
him in his meanderings amid the furniture of the 
room, was now suddenly arrested ; and arrested, 
as it appeared, by such irresistable agency, that, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 101 

in her anxiety to pass, she supplicated in the 
most earnest and touching manner to be released, 
throwing herself into postures which, for express- 
iveness and gracefulness, were fit for studies for 
the painter or statuary ! So touching and earnest 

indeed, was the manner of Miss H , whilst 

thus apparently held by an unseen and almost 
unimaginable power, — that those who witnessed 
the scene were greatly moved by it, one of the 
ladies, especially, even to tears. 

Explanation of this strange phenomenon, he, 
Dr. S., should not in the present place, attempt, 
except negatively r , to give. That it was not the effect 
of attraction, according to the ordinary nature 
of this principle, he had obtained, he thought, 
conclusive proof. He had placed his silk hand- 
kerchief beneath the hand w T hich he attached to 
the back of the sofa, and then raised, without 
undue violence, the previously attached hand. 
The handkerchief remained, when the hand was 
drawn off ; though the hand instantly fell back to 
its place, when he relinquished his hold of it. He 
again interposed a book betwixt the hand and the 
sofa ; but the hand which had seemed to be 
attached to the book, could be raised, whilst the 
book remained in its place. 

In respect to the apparent attachment to the 
floor, too, his present explanation would be little 
more than negative. It was not, he believed, 
from the force of either attractive or repellent 



102 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

powers in the magnetized line on the floor. If 
the attracted subject had not felt the act done by 
the magnetizer on the floor, he doubted whether 
she would have been arrested at all, in her 
attempt to step beyond it. For on his quickly 
turning round the screen, when his subject, on 
the other side, was free to follow, and mak- 
ing a stroke of his hand on the floor, as he had 
done before, — she crossed the invisible line, in 
her progress whilst following him, without ap- 
parent consciousness, or any interruption. 

He might mention in this connection, the em- 
barrassing effects, produced on the sleep-walker 
whilst following him, from proximity of the par- 
ties present at the seance. The painful sensation 
she seemed to experience, and the sudden starts 
she made, when she came unexpectedly near any 
one ; the indications of aversion, or almost terror, 
she manifested, as arrested in her course when he, 
Dr. S., slipped betwixt the chairs whereon two 
ladies were seated, — were singularly curious and 
interesting. 

7. Community of taste out of contact. 

In the first two seances, he, Dr. S., had tested 
this striking phenomenon in a variety of ways. 
He had found that any thing taken from the 
table, or the hand of another person, or even out 
of his own pocket, being a substance to be tasted^ 
produced, on his eating or drinking it, disturbing 



ZOIST1C MAGNETISM. 103 

effects. He thus tasted, with his back turned 

to Miss H , and whilst he stood in the middle 

of the room, — a variety of substances — such as 
fruit, or ginger, lozenges, wine, or what was most 
offensive, a decoction of bark. Decided marks 
of disturbance instantly followed each trial of this 
kind ; whilst effects, as of extreme or sickening 
disgust, were produced by the sympathy of taste 
when he took some of the decoction of bark. But 
still more surprizing was the change, from the 
suffering expression, or displeased scowl, when 
having breathed upon either of the articles pre- 
viously so distressing, the features were found to 
relax, and, as he continued to breath on it, the 
face at length indicated satisfaction, whilst the 
lips and mouth began to move as if enjoying 
something agreeable. Even the disgusting de- 
coction, after it had been duly breathed upon, 
produced an expression of at least questioning 
approval, if not of satisfaction, in the sympathy 
of taste ! 

But these experiments being all made within 
the ordinary range of vision, — though, indeed, 
not visible, because of the operator's position, and 
of the closed eyes of the subject, — it was 
deemed desirable, in order to the demonstration 
being incontrovertible, to repeat them behind the 
screen. Dr. S., having, therefore, secured his 
friend under experiment from rising to follow 
him,— by breathing on the sofa and attaching her 



104 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

hands thereto, — he went behind the screen, and^ 
whilst others watched the effects, he repeated 
several of the experiments of tasting. On this 
occasion he took lozenges, to eat, and some strong 
tea, which he had prepared in a vial, to drink, — 
and the effects were precisely as before. On 
tasting any of these, as they first came to hand, 

Miss H 's countenance became greatly dis- 

disturbed. Asking her the reason, she complained 
— " it was unpleasant" — " she did not like it" — 
and requested him not to take it ! But just as 
before, when he tasted more of any of the same 
articles after handling them and breathing upon 
them, the countenance changed its expression, 
not unfrequently into that of pleasure, — whilst 
she would sometimes answer to the question 
" whether she liked it ?" — " yes" — or " more ; 
more !" 

In these latter experiments on community of 
taste, he, Dr. S., was at a distance of about 

twelve feet from Miss H , with the screen, 

covered with linen and silk draperies, standing 
betwixt them ! 

Further experiments were also made at the 
fourth seance, which served for the verification 
of the results he had just described. Tasting, 
covertly, a variety of articles whilst he held one of 

Miss H 's hands, — her alternate dislike, and 

complacent endurance, of things unpleasant, were 
most characteristic of the peculiar phenomena 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 105 

previously determined. Miss H— ~, however, 
seldom named the article he tasted, when ques- 
tioned about it, — whether it was taken in con- 
tact or at a distance, — but seemed to realize the 
distinctive quality of the taste. When he had 
taken first tincture of rhubarb, with which she 
was excessively annoyed, and then mint lozenge, 
— he found that the effect could not be easily 
obliterated by the usual process of tasting again 
after breathing. She complained, almost angrily, 
of this treatment, saying — "why did you put 
such nasty things in my mouth ?" <c I hate 
them." And even after he, Dr. S., had taken 
some water — which certainly did not materially 
benefit his palate — she complained of his giving 
her all sorts of nasty tastes in her mouth ! 

Out of contact, and again behind the screen, 
the effects were similar to those previously 
elicited ; but no accurate designation, he should 
observe, was given to any of the several articles 
he tasted in these latter experiments. 

8. A glimpse at Clairvoyance. 

Though he, Dr. S., did not attach much value 
to his trial of the powers of his subject, in this 
much disputed and mysterious province of his re- 
searches ; yet he thought it well to communicate 
the result of this investigation. He would mention 
two or three particulars, bearing on the minor 
phenomena, from which, they, his audience, might 



106 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

form their own conclusions. The facts, at least, 
were curious. 

A flower having been thrown by one of the 
company against the back of Miss H's. head, she 
started, rather violently. He took it cautiously 
up, quite out of her sight, he believed, had her 
eyes even been open, and, having breathed on it, 
replaced it. She was now quiescent under the 
same kind of contact as had, just before, been so 
painful to her. On asking her "What it was?" 
she replied, "A flower. " "What kind of flower ?" 
"White and yellow." It was a species of nar- 
cissus, of the colours named. 

A book was next handed to him. It was a 
reprint of an old edition of "Sir John Maun- 
devile's Voige and Travaile," and was opened at 
a page containing a curious wood cut, — a man 
with a goose's head. He placed it cautiously on 
the top of Miss H's. head, and she immediately 
burst out in a laugh, remarking — "how funny," 
—"how queer." "What is it?" Dr. S. asked. 
"I don't know," was the reply ; "but it's very 
queer." Another page was then applied to the 
top of the head, where there was a cut of a bird 
with two necks and two heads. She expressed 
annoyance, and said, "I don't like it : it's heavy : 
take it away." "What is it ?" he enquired. "It's 
foolish : take it down : I don't like old books." 
"It's not an old book," he replied. "It is," she 
repeated : "I don't like old books." 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 107 

He finally suggested for her consideration a 
residence of his sister's in Yorkshire, asking her 
to describe it. In order to bring it more fully 
before her mind, he described the general locality 
of the house, as being about six miles from 
Whitby, near the railway, and proposed that she, 

Miss H , should take a journey with him 

there. He then asked her " if she could describe 
the house ?" She complained of "being too 
sleepy" : then of "its being too dark." Keeping 
her to the subject, she at last said, — "Oh, I think 
I see it now — it's a white house ; but it is too 
dark: foggy." "What kind of house is it?" 
"Not very large ; but friendly ; comfortable." 
"What is the form of it ?" he then enquired. "Is 
it high and narrow, or broad ?" "Broad : not 
very high," was the reply. "Is it all the same 
height ?" " No : it is higher in the middle." 
"Do you see any thing particular in the kitchen ?" 
— he farther asked, — "Or any pictures in the 
rooms ?" " No : it is too dark ; I can't see it." 
"What do you see else ?" "There is a bridge." 
"What kind of bridge ?" "Red : it is brick, I 
think." 

Now these several particulars, except what was 
said about the bridge, happened to be correct. 
And all, but the bridge, he had himself thought 
about. There were three bridges very near the 
house ; but none of them built of brick. Were 
the particulars thus consistently described derived 



108 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

from pictures in his mind ? Or were they happy 
guesses ? To him, the results, though curious, 
did not appear conclusive. The facts were before 
his audience ; they must judge for themselves. 

9. The stimulating of natural faculties, and of 
educational acquirements. 

Among the great variety of interesting phe- 
nomena elicited in his experiments with Miss 

H , there was nothing in any of the results, 

he believed, — not even in those of which he had 
himself been most incredulous, — at all bordering 
on the supernatural. Nor was there anything 
in the beautiful and astonishing effects he had 
now to describe, beyond what might be reasonably 
ascribed to an extraordinary excitement and 
stimulation of natural faculties and educational 
acquirements. 

The phenomena to which specially he referred, 
had respect to extemporaneous singing and dra- 
matic action — which were elicited in the manner 
he would now attempt to describe. 

On one occasion — the last and most important 
seance of the series under review, — he had 
arrested the progress of Miss H., whilst following 
him about the room, by passing his hand rapidly, 
in a semi-circular line, over the carpet in advance 
of her. The anxiety she evinced, as he, Dr. S,, 
retired from her beyond this species of magic 
barrier, was productive of actions and sensible 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 109 

emotions of a highly interesting and dramatic 
description, — now supplicating, now coaxing, 
with such singular variety of touching expression, 
as to bring out the feelings of her friends in 
sympathetic emotions or tears. 

But the more remarkable effects were elicited, 
when, at the suggestion of one of her friends, 
he, Dr. S., asked her to sing. For some time she 
hesitated, — c she doubted whether she could sing ; 
she was too sleepy ; too tired.' Urging her to do 
so, however, on the ground that he should much 
like it, she said, ' she would try ;' and so surpriz- 
ing was the result of the trial that the parties 
present were overwhelmed with astonishment and 
delight. Her song was an operatic piece in 
German, which none of her friends had ever 
heard before. It was in fact extemporaneous ; 
yet elegant, varied, and beautiful. From the 
highest notes within the compass of her voice, 
which were sustained with undeviating softness 
and delicacy, she would descend in felicitous 
warbling, and elegant conceptions of musical 
effect, — elaborating her subject with the happiest 
introduction of minor passages, and beautifully 
executed cadences ; whilst the admirable and 
graceful action, with which her singing was ac- 
companied, yielded a power of expression to her 
varied emotions, which was highly dramatic and 
beautiful. Sometimes her feelings seemed elevated, 
as by a species of sacred inspiration ; sometimes 



110 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

the expression was softly delicate and touching ; 
sometimes, as towards the conclusion when she 
was portraying some incident of heart-rending 
sorrow, her mingled expression of horror and 
woe was of inimitable effectiveness. 

The power of highly stimulated emotions, of 
elevated, pure and empassioned feelings, thus 
developed in natural action and expression, — had 
yielded, he was authorized to say, to several in- 
dividuals of cultivated taste who had participated 
with him in the enjoyment of the unexpected 
exhibition, a measure of astonishment and delight, 
such as, under artistical performance of highest 
merit, they had rarely realized. For himself, he 
might say, it was the finest thing, of this species 
of talent, he had ever witnessed. 

He, Dr. S., had asked the friends of Miss 

H , if they had ever heard any thing like this 

before ? They had often heard and admired her 
singing ; but anything at all comparable with 
this they had never heard. He asked the per- 
former herself, in the fulness of his surprise as 
she concluded, — where she had learnt it ? " I 
never learnt it ;" was the reply. " Where did 
you get it then ?" he asked. " You gave it to 
me." "You are not speaking accurately," he 
added ; " do not deceive me." " If I did," she 
answered, "you would know." 

But this interesting and beautiful scene did not 
terminate here. He had at first touched, he 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. Ill 

believed, by the way of experiment, the place 
assigned, phrenologically, to the organ of tune. 
He now touched the place of "tune" and 

"veneration," and requested Miss H , "to 

sing something more." How far any result came 
of this, his audience would judge for themselves. 
But, curiously enough, it happened, that shortly 
after he had removed his fingers from the speci- 
fied contact, Miss H began again to sing. It 

was a portion of the beautiful air of Haydn, — 
" with verdure clad." It was performed, as some 
who were present described it, with an uplifted 
face and angelic expression, and feeling of devo- 
tion, that was truly sublime ! But she did not 
complete it. " She forgot it ; and was very 
tired." 

No one but those present, it would be felt, 
could possibly appreciate the admirable effect of 
this performance. He, Dr. S., however, had the 
support of different persons who witnessed it, in 
this opinion, — that his description (which he had 
put in writing and read over to them) fairly 
represented the facts, and was anything but 
exaggerated. 

10. General concluding remarks on this most 
interesting case. 

During the whole of the time, within the 
several seances, in which the experiments, yield- 
ing the results he had described, were being 



112 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

carried on ; — Miss H , never, for a moment, 

that he observed, opened her closely compressed 
eye-lids. Her state of feeling, when lying on the 
sofa, and free from actions or movements of a 
disturbing nature, was uniformly one of happy 
enjoyment or felicity. It was a species of feli- 
citous somnambulism. 

Every attempt, to make her hear and under- 
stand what was said by the persons in the room, 
failed. Generally their voices were inaudible to 
her, though sometimes, a loud call would pro- 
duce a slight disturbance. In order to test the 
inaudibility of other voices than his, — an an- 
nouncement had been twice made (not justified, 
however, by fact) in a quick and loud tone, of 
what it was well known would have been. most 
startling to her had she heard it. But she con- 
tinued quietly smiling whilst he, Dr. S., was hold- 
ing one of her hands. 

In no case did she experience any inconveni- 
ence, from the elaborate trials of experiments on 
her, except mere ordinary tiredness, which soon 
went off. On one occasion, she was suffering so 
much from head-ache before the seance com- 
menced, as to induce Mrs. P to bathe her 

forehead and temples w 7 ith eau de cologne. 
During the seance he, Dr. S., had noticed ex- 
pressions indicative of continuance of the pain. 
He placed his hands on her forehead, the flat of 
the palms, when she immediately expressed her 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 113 

sense of relief : — c she liked that :' ' it took away 
her head-ache.' And so it proved, for when she 
was awoke up she was free from pain and per- 
fectly well. She generally slept well afterwards, 
and felt no unpleasant effects from her previous 
discipline, and, sometimes, trying exercises ; — on 
the contrary, she felt better than usual (as it was 

reported to him by friends of Miss H ) and 

had been more free from accustomed head-ache. 

She had no recollection whatever afterwards of 
the incidents which, to her friends, had been so 
striking and interesting. She did not know, till 
told of it, that she had been on the floor, singing, 
&c. A general recollection of happiness, with a 
vague feeling that she had been in sorrow when 
so exercised on the floor, — was all that she seemed 
to have been aware of. 

When Miss H was following him about the 

room, he might further observe, she saw nothing, 
as she intimated, but her magnetizer ; and when 
questioned as to how she saw him she said — ' she 
knew very well' ; c she felt w r here he w r as.' 
Whenever he stopped retreating from her, and 
took one or both of her outstretched hands, then 
she was perfectly satisfied, and her happy expres- 
sion of countenance was instantly restored. One 
curious variety occurred. For the sake of ex- 
periment, he, Dr. S., took up a silk mantle lying 
in his way, and, whilst Miss H. was following 
him, held it up before his chest and body 

H 



114 ZOTSTIC MAGNETISM. 

awaiting her approach. Her anxiety to advance 
was now thwarted by the adverse electricity of 
the silk, which proved effectually repellent. The 
conflict of feeling and sensation was strikingly 
conspicuous ; and the mixed expression produced 
by the conflicting influences «w T as extremely 
curious and interesting. 

It might be added, in regard to these experi- 
ments generally, that a considerable difference 
in the degree of susceptibility at different seances 
was observable,— though less in the case of 
Miss H than in that of any other of his fre- 
quently tried subjects : — and he was led to infer 
that the state of the atmosphere had a consider- 
able influence on, what might be called, the 
electrical phenomena, — these being quite inferior 
in interest, he thought, when the atmosphere w T as 
damp and in a bad state for ordinary electricity. 



The influence and power of Zoistic Magnetism 
in certain diseases, had been so abundantly 
proved by a large number of practical mesmerists, 
medical men and others, that it could no longer, 
he believed, as a general fact, be considered a 
matter of doubt. The history of the success of 
Mr. Greatrakes, within the period of 1662 — 1666, 
— as given in " Douglas's Criterion or Miracles 
examined," published nearly a century ago, as 
well as in several other publications of the very 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 115 

time — abundantly shews, not only that this in- 
fluence was used curatively at that period, but 
with very surprizing effects. 

In this important department of practical 
utility, he, Dr. S., had had but trifling experience. 
For with the objects he had in view, as already 
stated, it was more advantageous to make experi- 
ments on subjects in health, than on patients 
suffering under disease, — as, in such case, he 
could not with propriety have diverted the pur- 
pose of relieving suffering humanity, by disturb- 
ing experiments for the eliciting of scientific 
principles and phenomena. 

In the relief of head-ache, arising from inci- 
dental causes, he had himself witnessed and, 
indeed, instrumentally proved, the beneficial 
effects of Zoistic Magnetism. 

But beyond this, he had had one case of pecu- 
liar interest, which, though too limited as to 
time, for realizing the hoped-for benefits to the 
patient, was yet amply sufficient to shew the 
salutary influence of this agency on the system 
of the suffering patient. 

In this particular case, which he had under- 
taken at the request of a clerical friend, — the in- 
cumbent of the parish in which he was staying 
for a few days as a visitor, — he had magnetized a 
lady who was suffering under severe pain arising 
from organic disease. The effect of the magnetic 
influence was not only soothing and happy, but 



110 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM* 

totally overcame the feeling of suffering, and 
resulted in unwonted sleep. Speaking to one of 
her sisters of the feelings she had realised, after 
one of the early experiments, she said — " I have 
been in heaven." In eight trials out of nine, she 
had always realized perfect relief from suffering, 
and an experience of the sweetest composure and 
enjoyment, — though no sleep, distinctly magnetic, 
was ever produced. Generally, the effect took 
place within four or five minutes after taking hold 
of her hands. Once, however, there was a cur- 
ious difference, when the lady, according to the 
wishes of her friends, was attempted to be mag- 
netized after she went to bed. She was then 
suffering great agony from an incidental cause. 
The taking of her hands and looking her in the 
face, by Dr. S., yielded some relief ; but the usual 
passes, which were always felt to be delightful, 
could not be satisfactorily made on account of a 
great thickness of bed clothes. Over the face and 
chest, however, where there was nothing but a 
shawl above the night dress, the effect was, as 
formerly, relieving and pleasant ; but the local 
pain, which was removed from its ordinary place, 
lodged, as to sensation, at the very spot w T here 
the points of the manipulator's fingers rested at 
the termination of the passes. 

Such was the prevailing and almost immediate 
relief of suffering, produced in this instance by 
the influence of Zoistic Magnetism, that he was 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 117 

strongly impressed with the conviction, even in 
local or organic diseases, of its practical benefits ; 
so that, under a judicious and persevering appli- 
cation of these means, a world of suffering might, 
in many cases, be prevented ; and, that, though it 
should fail in healing, the span of life, in all 
probability, might be considerably extended. 



It yet remained, the lecturer proceeded to say, 
that he should state his views of the rationale of the 
phenomena he had been describing and endea- 
vouring to elucidate. Not that he assumed to 
give any conclusive statement of the theory of 
Zoistic Magnetism ; but to endeavour to elicit, 
relatively to recognized scientific principles, such 
considerations as might aid in rescuing the phe- 
nomena in some degree from the region of mys- 
tery and doubt, and might place them in reason- 
able, and he would hope appreciable, relation to 
means and end, cause and effect. 

These objects he might conveniently proceed 
with under two leading enquiries ; — What is this 
mysterious agency ? And how does it operate ? 

I. The first of these guiding enquiries, was,— 
What is this mysterious agency ? 

The resulting phenomena of Zoistic Magnetism, 
had, as, in his first lecture, he had more particu- 
larly shewn, very striking analogies with those of 



118 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM, 

ordinary magnetism ; whilst the developments 
from his later investigations indicated character- 
istics more distinctively electrical. But whilst 
these latter facts seemed to point so distinctly to 
an electric origin, yet he could not from thence 
infer that this must be certainly so. As to mag- 
netism and electricity, though principles insepara- 
bly co-existent, he could not deem them identical; 
but, as he had long contemplated them, — along 
with heat, lights chemical action, and other cog- 
nate phenomena, — as the several attributes or 
properties of some more mysterious and subtle 
agency. And the same essential, and hitherto un- 
defined agency, he believed to pervade the whole 
constitution of the material world ; an agency by 
means of which, as the servant of the Great Crea- 
tor, He appears to regulate and subordinate the 
creation to His will. 

Thus whilst these various qualities in matter, 
—which he, Dr. S., considered as attributes 
of a common originating agency, — were found, in 
many cases, to be co-existent, — no one of them 
could be fixed upon as the master-power ; for 
each one, in its turn, might be made the develop- 
ing power of the rest. So that chemical action, 
for instance, might be made to develope, at the 
same time, light, heat, electricity, magnetism ; 
and, conversely, magnetism might be so made to 
operate as to yield the phenomena of electricity, 
heat, light, and chemical action. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 119 

Hence, it must be seen, that the quality of a 
resulting influence, does not necessarily corre- 
spond with, or point out, the originating agent. 
The resulting action may be magnetical, as in the 
operation of the electric telegraph, whilst the 
immediate agency may be electrical, and the 
source of that agency, a particular order of 
chemical action. 

These views being applied to the subject under 
consideration, discouraged him against asserting 
the conclusion, however probable such conclu- 
sion might seem, that the grand agent of the 
phenomena in Zoistic Magnetism must be elec- 
tricity. It might be so ; or it might, in its more 
remote action, be magnetism ; or, still more 
remotely, it might be a species of chemical action 
produced by the decomposition of portions of the 
human system, and so occasioning that perpetual 
wear and tear of the physical part out of which 
arise the necessity for perpetual renovations by 
means of food and air. Under such uncertainty, 
at least, as to the actual quality of the master- 
agency in Zoistic Magnetism, he had not hitherto 
felt himself called upon to change the designation 
he had commenced with for that of Zoistic 
electricity ; notwithstanding, he might still find it 
convenient to speak of it, in reference to its 
apparent nature, as electrical. 

But to return to his leading enquiry, — as to 
what this mysterious agency is ? 



120 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

The principle operated on, in the subject in 
whom the magnetic condition might be developed, 
appeared to him, Dr. S., to be that which was 
transmitted by the nerves from the fountain of 
the brain, or, in other words, the nervous in- 
fluence, — the influence by which the vital func- 
tions and acting organization are stimulated and 
carried on, and by which the monitions of the 
will and mind become effective in operation. 
From the powerful action of voltaic electricity 
on the animal structure, and on the nerves of 
animals recently deprived of life, — the nervous 
influence has been assumed by many to be iden- 
tical with electricity. But it only concerned his, 
Dr. S.'s, object, in what he had now before him 3 
to point out, in order to the consideration of his 
other enquiry, — that he held the mysterious agent 
in Zoistic Magnetism, whatever that agent might 
be, to be identical with that of which the nervous 
system was the vehicle and apparatus in opera- 
tion. And this might suffice to conduct his 
audience to his second guiding enquiry ; — 

II. How does this mysterious agency, in Zoistic 
Magnetism, act P 

From the facts and phenomena, he had de- 
scribed in these lectures, it would be obvious, 
that the mode of action of the influence referred 
to, must be diverse from its operation under its 
ordinary government. The nervous system 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 121 

becomes, in certain measure, subject to a new 
and extraneous guidence. Instead of the direc- 
tion being from the will and functions of the 
magnetised subject, it is transferred, in some 
remarkable particulars, to the agent in the oper- 
ation. Not in all particulars, it should be noted, 
does this transference of agency operate : for it 
does not over-power either involuntary functions, 
or identity of mind ; but the operation of volun- 
tary actions, nervous influences and sensations, 
and power of will. The involuntary machinery 
of the wonderful fabric goes on as usual ; the 
operations of the mind are, in many respects, free 
and active, and its general faculties often singu- 
larly alive and effective ; whilst the principles of 
the mind, as in his experience had been strikingly 
evinced, seem not merely to be retained, Tmt to 
be refined and characterized by child-like inno- 
cency and purity. 

But, in many other particulars, the magnetic 
influence of the agent becomes the master-in- 
fluence with the subject. The nervous current, 
so to speak, seems, in these respects, to flow 
conversely. The will of the agent acts, in cer- 
tain muscular results, instead of that of the in- 
dividual. The course of the nervous action being 
reversed, the operation of the influence by which 
sensation is produced, is also, as to the suscep- 
tible subject at least, reversed. Ordinary hurts 
or injuries, inflicted on the subject, are not trans- 



122 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

mitted to his perceptions ; whilst hurts, or sensa- 
tions impressed on the agent are conveyed, by a 
singular anastomosing of nervous or sensorial 
currents, conversely, to the perceptions of the 
subject. If, in the ordinary operations of the 
nervous instrumentality, the brain be considered 
as an electric telegraph, transmitting, at once, 
monitions and powers of action : in the magne- 
tized subject the action is, in measure, reversed ; 
the will of the magnetiser now, in certain respects, 
operating instead of that of the subject. So that 
had we the case of two persons mutually magne- 
tizing each other, we might expect, he, Dr. S., 
conceived, a perfect reciprocation of all the in- 
fluences ordainly impressed upon the subject, — 
the will of each one becoming dominent on the 
other, and impressions on the sensations of either 
being felt by the other. 

Fully to elaborate his ideas of the rationale of 
these altered conditions, would carry him far 
beyond his proposed limits ; yet he must endea- 
vour to sketch, as compactly as might be, consis- 
tent with intelligableness, their bearing on the 
principle varieties of phenomena he had already 
described. 

1 . In respect to the mode of development of the 
magnetic condition. 

And here he must refer to a principle found to 
be of very general operation in natural science : 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM* 123 

viz., to the power in certain agencies of deve- 
loping, elsewhere, the like latent qualities. Thus 
in case of electricity, or magnetism, the active 
powers of one body may elicit similar qualities 
in other bodies, having a capacity for the peculiar 
influence, or in which the principles were existing, 
but dormant. Hence a magnet may render, by 
juxta-position or contact, a mass of iron or steel, 
previously indicating no polarity, magnetic ; 
an electrified body, by mere proximity with 
another having no such sensible quality, may 
induce in it an electrical condition ; whilst, in 
the case of combustibles, the power of one in 
action, however feeble, may develope the latent 
qualities of the other to an unlimited extent of 
conflagration. 

Hence, a glimpse, if not a correct insight, 
into, the rationale of Zoistic Magnetism^ may 
be derived from our knowledge of apparently 
kindred sciences ; wherein, not improbably, we 
have to deal with one, and the same, essential 
agency, modified, in the subject under review, 
by the animal organization and the principle 
of life. 

The requirements for the development of the 
Zoistic Magnetism, would, on the principle of 
development of other cognate phenomena, seem 
to be, — the previous production of a magnetic 
or electric condition in the agent. If, therefore, 
by any effort or power of the agent, such a con- 



124 ZOIST1C MAGNETISM. 

dition were produced in himself, — it is but 
consistent with the analogies of science to admit, 
that such condition might possibly produce an 
influence on, or yield development of, the 
magneto-electric elements or properties in the 
subject with whom he is in connection. 

But how may such a condition be primarily 
produced in the agent? The answer usually 
given, and which to him, the lecturer, seemed 
sufficient, was the effort of the mind or will of 
the agent — acting upon his nervous, or Zoistic- 
Magnetic, system. 

The philosophy of this proposition might be 
viewed, in a modified form, in every act which 
results from the human will. Any one wills to 
stretch out his arm. The wonderful series of 
powers and mechanism with which the body is 
endued, obeys the authority with the swiftness 
of thought, and the arm is stretched out. In 
this case — according to the physiological theory 
— the brain, under the power of the will, excites 
action, by virtue of the nervous influence, in the 
nerves of the arm — the nerves induce action in 
the muscles of the arm and shoulder — the 
muscles operate upon the beautiful system of 
joints — and the arm obeys the mandate of the 
master-power ! 

If, however, the nerves or brain shall be acted 
on — as acted on they may be — by another power 
besides the individual mil, the arm may, in like 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 125 

manner, be stretched out. Of this fact, disease, 
passion, terror, sympathy, and a variety of other 
causes, yield innumerable examples ; examples 
of action, in the nervous or stimulating motive 
agency of the human system, independant of the 
individual will. 

Hence analogy and fact justify the assump- 
tion, that actions and effects on the nervous 
system of one individual may be produced — as 
in a thousand other cases they are — by develop- 
ments in the nervous or magnetic or electric 
system of another individual. 

To produce, therefore, the requisite condition 
and power in the agent, with a due regard to 
proximity and circumstances in the subject, is 
evidently the groundwork of the operation, and 
this, it is believed, is sufficiently afforded by the 
energetic directing of the mind and will of the 
agent. But as the electric charge, if remote 
from conducting bodies, is inert ; as the Leyden 
jar, most highly charged, seems, as it stands 
insulated, as powerless and uninfluential as an 
ordinary jar, — so must the self-willed magnetic 
force in the agent be powerless and unobserve- 
able, unless the circumstances for its transmission 
or effusion be provided. 

But another principle, also comes in, in this 
process of magnetic development. As magnetism 
developed in the iron of the conductor or arma- 
ture of a magnet, aids both in the support, and 



126 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

for higher development, of power in the master- 
magnet, — so, it may be assumed, does the 
magnetic condition developed in the subject of 
Zoistic Magnetism, both aid in the development, 
and contribute to the support of, the magnetic 
power of the agent. It may, indeed, be reason- 
ably doubted, whether any considerable power 
of magnetical arrangement can be wrought up in 
the agent, by his mere voluntary energies, without 
such aid in sustaining energy from the subject. 

As an illustration, by the analogies of science, 
of the leading phenomenon now referred to, — of 
the over-coming of the natural master-power in 
the subject of Zoistic Magnetism, by the domi- 
nancy of the operator — he, Dr. S., would submit 
to his audience an experiment in ordinary mag- 
netism. He had provided himself, as would be 
observed, with half a dozen magnetic compass- 
needles, which he had suspended on blunt points, 
in a straight-line on a board, — the needles being 
so adjusted, as to distance, that, when arranged 
continuously, their mutually attracting poles 
should come very near, but without touching, to 
each other. He would now place the board in 
the direction of the magnetic meridian, whereby 
the needles were found to adjust themselves, 
spontaneously, under the naturally master-in- 
fluence of the earth's magnetism. But if he pre- 
sented to the northward extremity of the series 
of needles, the north pole of a strong bar-magnet, 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 127 

this new influence, it would be seen, assumed the 
dominancy, — the nearer needles were turned 
round, and, as he passed the same pole from north 
to south of the board, though at considerable 
elevation above it, the magnetic current in the 
whole series was found not only to be reversed, but 
to become self-sustained in the reverse direction. 

It might be objected, in regard to an obvious 
fact in Zoistic Magnetism, that the influences 
developed in the subject were incomparably more 
powerful than what appeared in the agent. But 
as to this, analogies could be shewn, fully ade- 
quate, he conceived, to satisfy the objection. 

[These analogies were shewn by the lecturer in 
a series of curious and original experiments, in 
which the apparently feeble power of the earth's 
magnetism, was applied for the yielding of sources 
of magnetism in wires of steel, when aammered 
upon vertically-sustained bars of iron, such as 
sufficed to render these wires strongly magnetic ; 
and such as, in larger and more perfect arrange- 
ments, had sufficed, as he remarked, to yield 
power enough to magnetize a variety of instru- 
ments and machines attaining, ultimately, to the 
power of sustaining, attractively, weights amount- 
ing to four hundred pounds !] 

2. As to the making of the limbs rigid, by the 
will and manipulation of the operator, — he, Dr. S., 
had little to say in explanation. It was obviously 



128 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

as he conceived, an effect of the reversed influence 
on the nervous system of the subject, developing 
itself in this curious phenomenon, — a phenomenon 
strikingly calculated to convince the candid, 
though incredulous enquirer, of the reality of the 
powers asserted of this mysterious agency. 

Instead of venturing farther, however, into the 
field of speculation as to the cause of it, he would 
rather avail himself of the opportunity, afforded 
by this reference to mesmeric rigidity, of caution- 
ing those who might witness its production 
against the danger of the severe processes, some- 
times foolishly, if not brutally, adopted, for test- 
ing the extent or reality of the phenomenon. 
As to this, he was anxious to put them on their 
guard against testing fact, by injurious proofs. 
Cases were well known in w T hich the out-stretched 
rigid arm had been pressed down, without resolv- 
ing the rigidity, by the suspension of heavy weights, 
or, what w r as still worse, by the unregulated force 
of downward pressure by ignorant or thoughtless 
spectators. It would be well that all practitioners 
of Zoistic Magnetism should be aware, that the 
fibre of the rigid muscles of the arm or shoulder 
might easily be ruptured by this unimagined 
violence, — where the leverage is such, when the 
horizontally extended arm is pressed down by 
the wrist, that a pressure of only ten pounds must 
exert a strain of, perhaps, near one hundred and 
fifty pounds at the shoulder ! 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 129 

A case, in point, was mentioned to him by a 
clergyman, A person employed officially in his 
parish having attended a lecture on mesmerism, 
disbelieved and scoffed at the asserted results. 
The lecturer having challenged him to an experi- 
ment, personally, he fearlessly submitted, and, 
under the trial, his right arm was extended 
beyond his own power of flexure. The persons 
present were encouraged to test the rigidity by 
endeavouring to bend it ; but failing, individually, 
two young men at length put their united force 
to the hand, and still without effecting its per- 
manent depression. The somewhat depressed 
arm elastically sprung up on being released from 
this brutal violence. But though it had resisted 
the force, it was essentially damaged by the rude 
experiment ; and no wonder. If the downward 
force on the wrist were assumed at a hundred 
and fifty pounds (and it might have been more) 
the force on the muscles at the shoulder would 
probably amount to almost a ton ! It was no 
wonder, then, that an abscess broke out in the 
shoulder, and that the arm of the unhappy sub- 
ject, was, in respect of its ordinary capabilities, 
ruined for life ! 

In like manner, he, Dr. S., would most strongly 
deprecate, every kind of experiment on the mag- 
netized subject which would result in suffering, 
or other ill-consequences, if inflicted in the ordi- 
nary state. Such, for instance, as trials of pun- 

i 



130 ZOTSTIC MAGNETISM. 

gent salts or liquids to the nostrils ; — for, it should 
be remembered, that, the act of smelling, in our 
ordinary sensibility, is guarded against serious 
mischief, by the sensation of unpleasantness or 
pain ; but not so in the magnetic condition. So 
that the pungent vapour then unfelt, may pro- 
duce inflammation in the membranes over which 
it passes in its progress to the lungs ! 

3. As to the fixing of the hands or feet, he, 
Dr. S., had already spoken so far, in respect of 
theory, as to shew that the phenomenon did 
not arise from any principle corresponding with 
ordinary attractions. The effect, as to him it 
appeared, was due to a species of spasmodic or 
rigidifying action on the hand or foot of the 
subject, induced and upheld by, probably, some 
electric condition in the object to which the limb 
might be attached, produced therein by the touch- 
ing or breathing of the operator. So that 
an influence, electrically, in the hand of the 
agent, — otherwise resulting in rigidity on the arm 
of the subject, — might here be transferred to the 
sofa or to the floor, and become energetic in in- 
fluence, and sustaining in its effect, after the 
manner of the originating agency. 

The attachment of the feet by a stroke of the 
hand across the carpet, it appeared, was either 
aided by the imagination of the subject, or the 
electric influence developed by the act must be 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 131 

very evanescent, — or this act, as done a few yards 
in advance of his subject, behind the screen, 
would hardly have failed to produce the same 
results as in other cases. 

4. As to the development of artistical or extra- 
ordinary powers. 

Intensely interesting as the performances of 

Miss H , in singing, composing, and acting 

had been, there was nothing in them, as he had 
before notified, that belonged to the region of 
the supernatural. These phenomena resulted, 
obviously, from the power of the exciting and 
elevating agency by which the performer was 
herself acted upon. She was well known, indeed, 
as an accomplished singer ; and, her private 
friends knew her, as he, Dr. S., afterwards learnt, 
to have a peculiar taste and aptitude for dramatic 
action. In any former exercises, however, of this 
description, the results could bear no comparison, 
with these referred to ; the former would be the 
mere results of a dramatic taste and pre-consider- 
ation of the effects, in action, of passion and 
emotion; but the action he had witnessed, 
being the simple consequence of feeling and emo- 
tion, became perfect, because entirely natural. 

As to other analagous results, that had been 
spoken of elsewhere, in respect of acquisitions in 
language or literature supposed, previously, to 
have been unknown, — he, Dr. S., considered them 



132 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

as having arisen, not out of new and marvellously 
conveyed powers, but out of impressions, at some 
time or other made on the memory, which, under 
the susceptibility of the magnetic condition, had 
been elicited. For we were not without examples, 
he believed, in the history of disease, of remark- 
able revelations of apparently lost impressions on 
the memory, coming out, — like the prepared plate 
from the daguerreotype camera after exposure to 
the quicksilver vapour, — in vivid representation 
of images previously unseen. 

In like manner as the tablet of memory is, 
under Zoistic Magnetism, sometimes made to 
give out its previously invisible impressions of 
memory, — it is not impossible but that the retina 
or the nervous organization of other senses, may 
restore impressions long before made upon them, 
which no power of the individual will could 
enable the subject, at other times, to recall ? 

And by the quickening of the senses, too, this 
powerful agency may doubtless make extraordi- 
nary developments , For whilst, in certain stages 
of the magnetic condition, the senses, as to ex- 
traneous impressions, appear to be suspended, 
and may actually be so ; in other stages, as to 
peculiar impressions, the ear may be quick in 
hearing, the touch and general sensation suscep- 
tible of perceiving, in degree inconceivably 
beyond their ordinary capabilities. 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 133 

5. As to impressions, on the sensibilities of the 
magnetized subject, derived from persons at a 
considerable distance. 

The extraordinary sensibility of some of his 
subjects to the movements of persons consider- 
ably removed from them, with walls, or floors, 
or opaque screens, intervening ; and the still more 
surprizing sympathy of taste where the agent and 
subjects were separated by spaces of several yards, 
and with screens, or projecting partitions, inter- 
posed, — had occasioned to him, the lecturer, 
more perplexing thought, and had resulted in 
more enlargement of idea on the wonderous 
system of influences ordained by Infinite Wisdom 
for the perfecting of the functions of humanity, 
than all his previous reading and researches had 
opened out to him. 

Time would not allow him to attempt the 
description of the progress of his thoughts in this 
mysterious field of physiology. But he would 
touch upon some of the leading ideas. 

The phenomena referred to seemed to indicate, 
either that there existed a special medium, amid 
the space to which these sensibilities extended, 
capable of conveying impressions as the air con- 
veyed sound ; or that there existed an universal 
power of radiation from all animal bodies (ex- 
tending, very possibly, to every substance or 
thing in nature) throwing out rays, not merely of 
heat, but of other subtle influences pertaining to 



134 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

the animal constitution ; and so as at once, like 
the nervous and sensorial powers, to convey and 
receive impressions betwixt body and body, each 
and all reciprocating their influences one with 
another. Weighing these two suppositions, he 
himself felt decidedly inclined to the latter. 

\ By means, he supposed, of this radiating in- 
fluence, the magnetized subject, — often incom- 
parably more sensitive than the most delicate 
galvanometer or electroscope, — received im- 
pressions, both from the electricities disturbed by 
movements in the parties planted near, and from 
the sensations of the magnetizer with whom she 
sympathized. In the former case, a discordant 
effect was produced on the sentient powers of 
the subject, by reason of the incongruity of the 
radiating influences ; in the latter case, there 
seemed to be a resonance, like that of synchron- 
ous musical strings, causing the sympathizing 
sensibilities of the subject, to harmonize with the 
influence of the magnetizing agent. 

The ordinary effects of radiation, in the recipro- 
cating of diversities of temperature in contiguous 
bodies, and tending to bring all into a similar 
state, — might illustrate, though in a very imper- 
fect degree, the supposed radiation of other physi- 
cal influences betwixt man and man. Whilst the 
wonderful, (because not generally appreciated,) 
influences radiating betwixt associated individuals 
among men, — might serve as an analogy for the 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 135 

understanding of other striking physical pheno- 
mena which, in modern times, have been indica- 
ted by photographic research. If it be so, that the 
light from any object cast into definite shape by a 
convex lens, and then thrown upon an ordinary 
snrface of polished metal, may leave an impression 
thereon; or if it be so, that a medal or cameo 
placed immediately over a like polished surface, 
but without contact, may, by reason of its mys- 
terious radiation, leave a picture of itself on the 
proximate metal ; — may it not also be consistently 
imagined that man, in his individuality, may be 
thus radiating, on things around, characteris- 
tic impressions, (and these not by any means 
transcient or evanescent,) such as, by faculties 
peculiarly ordered, and sensibilities specially elici- 
ted, may be perceived and identified ? 

With radiations and emanations of generic 
characteristics and differences we w r ere sufficiently 
familiar. We could easily distinguish, by our 
ordinary perceptions, the heat of the sun from 
that of a fire. We might distinguish, too, betwixt 
the heat radiated from a fire of coal, and that 
from a fire of wood ; or of a particular kind of 
coal, such as the anthracite, from the ordinary 
bituminous coal ; or of a heated furnace of iron, 
from the heat of a brick kiln. 

But whilst these differences, generally or 
specifically, might be perceived, — differences in 
individual radiations from fires of the same seam 



136 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

of coal, and of like intensity and mass, could 
hardly be looked for. Not so, however, as to 
emanations from different persons. As to inor- 
ganic substances, various separate masses might 
be precisely similar and yield precisely the like 
emanations ; but as to organic substances, no two 
individual specimens would be found perfectly 
and entirely alike. Similar as the leaves of the 
elm might, to ordinary observation, appear to be 
to one another ; no two leaves of the same tree, or 
in a forest of the same trees, would be found 
to be exactly the same. 

Hence it may be imagined, that the subtle 
etherial principle which he, the lecturer argued, 
proceeded from every particular creature, might 
be in like manner modified, generally, by the 
organization and qualities of the tribe to which 
it belonged, and, individually, by the peculiarities 
of personal identity. In this view, the Zoistic 
Magnetism of each individual might reasonably 
be supposed to be peculiarly personal and distinc- 
tive from all others ; to have an identity in its 
emanations, as distinctive as the personality of the 
being from which it flowed. Hence we might 
understand something of the phenomena of the 
scent of a dog : — how, he being magnetized, as it 
were, by the kindness or attaching influence of 
his master, has a perception of his master's foot- 
steps, and, in certain cases, so sensitively, as to 
enable him to trace, by the emanations impressed 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 137 

on the ground, his master's course, not only to 
great distances, but, possibly, through the bewil- 
dering mazes and mixture of other influences, in 
the market or the fair ! 

If the phenomena of scenting be favourable to 
the theory of emanations, characterized by 
identity of person, for which, he, Dr. S., argued ; 
the fact of a peculiar perception existing in some 
individuals, of the proximity of certain animals, 
— such as of a cat, for instance, however con- 
cealedly, being in the room — should be deemed 
as indicative of a somewhat analagous emanation 
from the animal tribes generally. 

For so he believed the fact to be. From con- 
sideration of the phenomena he had been the 
instrument of developing in cases of Zoistic 
Magnetism, — he could find no other rational 
explanation but in some such influence as that he 
had attempted to describe, — an influence carried, 
perhaps, as an atmosphere, around every living 
creature, and sending off emanations, too, in 
every direction. 

6. As to the operation of Zoistic Magnetism 
curatively. 

Of the extent to which this powerful agency 
was capable of operating; of the diseases to 
which it might be applicable when all other means 
of relief had failed ; of the beneficial results, in 
practice, which had been derived to suffering 
humanity through the philanthropic efforts of 



138 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

persons not medically educated, as well as under 
the manipulations or direction of regular prac- 
titioners, — he, the lecturer, did not mean to 
enlarge. But only whilst stating his own con- 
viction of a capability in this mysterious power of 
effecting most beneficial results for man, — he 
purposed to state the views he entertained of the 
rationale of its curative operations. 

In regard to the benefits it was capable of 
affording in the suspension of pain, under suffer- 
ing, and of sensation under pain-yielding opera- 
tions, — he had witnessed and described circum- 
stances, calculated, he hoped, to convince his 
audience, that these assumptions of beneficial 
influence in Zoistic Magnetism, were matters of 
fact. How this power might operate for the effect- 
ing of these specific purposes, he had already 
indicated his ideas. 

His views of the principle on which this in- 
fluence was capable of acting curatively, might be 
further set forth. As many cases of human 
suffering arose from deprivation of sleep, — the 
inducing of sleep, without the use of mischievous 
narcotics or soporifics, — seldom administered 
without the entailment of painful reactions or 
aggravation of the evil, — must of itself be cal- 
culated to act very beneficially. For sleep so 
induced — by means of mutual sympathies and 
reciprocating influences inherent in man — might 
be well deemed to be favourable to the restora- 
tion of other functions of life, and so to the aiding 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 139 

the vital elasticities in recovering dominion over 
the prostrate frame. 

Beyond this important influence, he, Dr. S., 
could well believe, that the magnetisms of the 
healthful operator might serve to stimulate the 
disordered or paralysed power of the nervous 
agency in the diseased subject ; that an abund- 
ance, too, of the vital energy, in the one party, 
might be brought in aid of the defective vitality, 
of the other party ; that the physical strength of 
the agent might yield renovation of strength in 
the atrophied subject ; and that the commanding 
nervous power of the magnetizer over that of the 
magnetized, — might overcome and regulate, what 
he might call, the nervous congestion that had 
been productive of disease. 

As a distributive agent, in regard to congested 
or disordered nervous influence, — this master- 
principle, duly in operation, should, he conceived, 
have a very beneficial influence. In local in- 
flammation, it would appear, there was not only 
a determination of blood to the place, but an 
excess of nervous action productive of soreness, 
— which of these was the cause and which the 
effect, it was not for him to say, — but if the fact 
be so, then, he must assume, that the magnetic 
manipulation would be calculated, as his own 
experiments indicated, to draw off the nervous 
congestion, and to distribute the nervous influence 
in regular circuit, and so, both to reduce the 
inflammatory action, and to yield a soothing 



140 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

effect on the general system. For, according to 
the views he entertained, the process of magneti- 
zation produced arrangement of the electric or 
magnetic elements of the human system ; and, so, 
tended to restore the equable circulation of the 
influence, or fluid, transmitted by the nerves. 

If in these views, however, he, the lecturer, 
were correct, — he must suggest a caution in the 
use of this agency curatively, as to the risk of 
employing a debilitated or an unhealthy magne- 
tizer. In such case, the magnetic manipulation, 
instead of being beneficial, might result in mis- 
chievous or pernicious consequences. He had, 
indeed, known a case of this very description. 
Where, under his hands, extraordinarily relief 
and benefit had been experienced by a greatly 
suffering invalid, — his place, as magnetizer, had 
been taken by a member of the domestic circle. 
But he, being of a debilitated constitution, pro- 
duced a converse result from that which was 
designed, and looked for ; the patient lost strength 
rapidly, whilst the operator realized an invigor- 
ating influence out of the still existing physical 
strength of the individual he sought to relieve ! 

He, Dr. S., might finally state, as to the bene- 
ficial application of Zoistic Magnetism, — that the 
results he had obtained in the department of 
polarities, had, according to his theory, an im- 
portant bearing on the efficiency of this agency 
curatively. There might be cases, he admitted, 
in which too great sensitiveness might be induced 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 141 

in the patient, but — as from most of his researches 
it had appeared, that due attention to polarities, 
was of singular effectiveness in yielding soothing 
and agreeable results from the magnetizing con- 
tact and manipulation, — he was strongly im- 
pressed with the importance of the consideration 
of polarities for obtaining the best results. 



In bringing these lectures now to a conclusion, 
he, Dr. Scoresby, had much satisfaction in stating, 
that, — whilst his subject had greatly grown upon 
his hands, both in extent and variety and interest, 
— all his anticipations of the consistency of the 
phenomena, which it had been his endeavour to 
develope and elucidate, with received principles of 
natural science, had been amply confirmed. That 
the results he had described were absolute reali- 
ties, he could no more doubt than any fact of 
science he had ever had the privilege of investi- 
gating. And if they were real phenomena, they 
were worthy of careful investigation, and, in their 
results, would doubtless witness, like other power- 
ful agents employed by the Great Creator, to the 
Divine wisdom and beneficence ; whilst the know- 
ledge acquired concerning them, would, like the 
discoveries in other departments of science, be 
found practically important to mankind. 

The agency itself, to which he referred, as he 
had already endeavoured to shew, was one of grand 
importance, and of extensive employment, in the 



142 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

human constitution, — the same agency, most 
probably, modified by organization, as that found 
in mysterious operation in all created nature 
within reach of man's means of research. For 
he saw no reason for limiting a power, so clearly 
assimilated or identified with the nervous energy 
of a system " fearfully and wonderfully made," 
to the operations, or effects, or curious develop- 
ments, ordinarily ascribed to its province. He 
was disposed to contemplate it, instrumentally, 
as engaged in the production of various pheno- 
mena belonging to life and organization, such as 
sleep, ordinary somnambulism, fainting, &c. And 
he did not see why it should not have relation 
to, or influence in the development of, human 
sympathies, feelings and affections, and be a 
medium, (the agency itself, being apparently, 
immaterial and etherial) engaged instrumentally 
— under the laws of the Great Originator, and 
under the guidance or influence of the human 
spirit and vitality, — in all the operations per- 
taining to the functions of the living man ? 

For himself, he must say, he did consider 
the operations of this agency as being extended 
far beyond what was ordinarily contemplated of 
it. For what, he might ask, are these mysterious 
sympathies and influences of nature, by which 
man becomes attached to, or repellent of, his 
fellow man ? Whence are the powers by which 
new feelings are so wrought into our constitution 
as to act spontaneously as if they were part and 



ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 143 

parcel of. our original nature ; by which new alli- 
ances become a mixing of identities, and God's 
primeval law of marriage yields a new and mys- 
terious oneness ? Whence are the acute percep- 
tions by which a footstep, scarcely heard, becomes 
sensibly vibratory on affection's delicate chords ? 
Whence arise the occasional aversions betwixt 
individuals, sometimes quite unaccountable and 
undesigned, when first they are brought together ; 
and the unreflective repellent effects of some so- 
ciety into which they may accidentally be thrown ? 
Whence arise, on the other hand, the sweet sym- 
pathies springing up betwixt certain individuals, 
— often spontaneous, undefined, uncherished, — by 
which, at first meeting, heart seems to assimilate 
with heart, so as to resolve the surprising sympa- 
thies into confiding affection ? And whence, 
again, are those intuitive influences, — such as 
a mere glance of the eye, an incidental movement, 
the utterance of a word, a touch of the hand, — • 
which become electrical in operation, and often 
enduring in their results ? 

These things, he, Dr. S., did not view as mere 
physical effects, or the direct operations of Zoistic 
Magnetism ; but (as research and fact might 
justify the supposition) as being, not improbably, 
elicited out of the human mind and organization, 
instrumentally, by this strange power in anima- 
ted nature. But, even so, — should the doctrine 
assumed, be in reality established, — the advance in 
knowledge could be held only as an obscure glance 



144 ZOISTIC MAGNETISM. 

into the mystery of the Divine handy-work. As 
of old it was said 3 so might he call it to mind ; 
that "no man can find out the work that God 
maketh from the beginning to the end" : " Lo, 
these are parts of His ways ; but how little a 
portion is heard of Him !" 






POSTSCRIPT. 

The Author of the foregoing investigations (as lie may now with but limited excep- 
tion style himself) having begun with an Advertisement, finds it needful to finish 
with a Postscript. Tor it may be necessary to explain that, as some important 
and instructive investigations were being carried on during the progress of this 
publication through the press, he has freely availed himself of the new information 
they yielded. But this he must, of course, have done, at some risk of discrepancy 
betwixt the views he had stated at the outset, and the moi e enlarged conceptions 
derived from progressive developments. If any such discrepancies should appear, 
the statement now appended, may serve to explain the iact, if not to excuse the 
defect ; and, it should serve too, to account for, and he hopes to excuse, the exten- 
sion of the second lecture, in length and quantity, beyond its due proportions. 

No experiments, it will have been observed, were made in the course of the 
delivery of these lectures, in the actual department of which they treated ; but only 
in what were deemed cognate sciences. Experimental elucidation of the pheno- 
mena deseribed was not attempted, because of the Author's investigations having 
been made on a class of persons who could not, with propriety, appear before a 
public audience ; and as he himself had never been satisfied with the experiments 
he had witnessed in public lectures on hired subjects, he could not expect the confi- 
dence of his audience in the substitution of such for the actual cases on which hi3 
researches had been made. 

In conclusion, the Author may notice an enquiry which has sometimes been 
made of him, personally, in respect to his researches in Zoistic Magnetism, viz : — 
why the experiments herein referred to were so prevalently made on female subjects ? 
In reply, it may suffice to mention, two or three principal reasons: — 1. Because 
his experiments were generally made with persons who voluntarily offered them- 
selves, and these happened, almost entirely, to be ladies : — 2. Because he found, 
with those who so offered, entire confidingness, and no one instance of attempted 
deception, and, but rarely, any endeavour to resist the influence : — 3. Because 
when these scientific developments were being elicited in healthful subjects — with 
whom the magnetic condition is much less easily produced, he believes, than with 
diseased persons — there seemed to be some advantages in the female constitution, 
for his objects, both on account of its readier subjection to the developing in- 
fluence, than that of men, and on account of its greater nervous susceptibilities, 
whereby the phenomena elicited might be expected to be more characteristic, and 
the electric peculiarities more sensitive. The author now regrets, however, that he 
had not tried some experiments on the attractive and repellent influence, so 
interestingly elicited in the case of ladies, with some subjects of his own sex ; for 
however probable the correspondence of the phenomena may be in the two sexes, 
be is unable, from this want of experience, to attest their uniform agreement. 

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